THE CONDOR AS OFFICER OF HEALTH. 87 



foreigner in Peru, he looked forward with undisguised 

 dread to the day when the ChiHans should depart. 



If one had not recollected how very slowly and 

 imperfectly the elementary rules of health have made 

 way in Europe, it would have been hard to understand 

 how men of education and intelligence, such as the 

 great majority of the Chilian officers, should neglect 

 the simplest precautions for preserving the health of 

 themselves and their men. We had heard that the 

 troops at Chicla had lost many men owing to a severe 

 outbreak of typhoid fever, though the disease had 

 recently almost disappeared. The cause was not far 

 to seek. The ground all around the village was 

 thickly strewn with the remains of the numerous 

 baggage animals that had fallen from overwork, and 

 the beasts that had been slaughtered by the soldiers. 

 In South America the only sanitary officials are the 

 carrion-eating birds. Near the coast the removal of 

 offal is chiefly accomplished by the gallinazo, a large 

 black vulture ; in the Andes the condor takes charge 

 of all carrion, and travels far in quest of it. It is likely 

 that in the noisy neighbourhood of a detachment of 

 soldiers the birds were shy of approach. If the 

 remains had been dragged a short distance away from 

 the village, they would have been quickly disposed 

 of As it Vv^as, the carcases were allowed to accumulate 

 close to the sheds in which the men were lodged until 

 they bred a pestilence. Things were mended, they 

 said, at the time of our visit, yet, warned by vile 

 emanations, I found the carcase of a horse lying close 

 beside the baraque in which we slept ; and it was only 

 after energetic remonstrances that I succeeded in 



