THE EARTH. 275 



as a very advanced time of life, and generally die 

 of old age at fifty. At Carthagena,* in America, 

 where the heat of the hottest day ever known in 

 Europe is continual ; where, during their winter 

 season, these dreadful heats are united with a 

 continual succession of thunder, rain, and tem- 

 pests, arising from their intenseness, the wan and 

 livid complexions of the inhabitants might make 

 strangers suspect that they were just recovered 

 from some dreadful distemper. The actions of the 

 natives are conformable to their colour; in all 

 their motions there is somewhat relaxed and lan- 

 guid ; the heat of the climate even affects their 

 speech, which is soft and slow, and their words 

 generally broken. Travellers from Europe retain 

 their strength and ruddy colour in that climate, 

 possibly for three or four months ; but afterwards 

 suffer such decays in both, that they are no longer 

 to be distinguished from the inhabitants by their 

 complexion. However, this languid and spirit- 

 less existence is frequently drawled on sometimes 

 even to eighty. Young persons are generally most 

 affected by the heat of the climate, which spares 

 the more aged ; but all, upon their arrival on the 

 coasts, are subject to the same train of fatal dis- 

 orders. Few nations have experienced the mor- 

 tality of these coasts so much as our own : in 

 our unsuccessful attack upon Carthagena, more 

 than three parts of our army were destroyed by 

 the climate alone ; and those that returned from 

 that fatal expedition, found their former vigour 



* Ulloa, vol. i. p. 42. 



