436 NEW SOUTH WALES. [CHAP. xix. 



renders this fact remarkable is, that there might be no appear- 

 ance of disease among the crew of the ship which conveyed this 

 destructive importation." This statement is not quite so extra- 

 ordinary as it at first appears ; for several cases are on record of 

 the most malignant fevers having broken out, although the 

 parties themselves, who were the cause, were not affected. IP 

 the early part of the reign of George III., a prisoner who had 

 been confined in a dungeon, was taken in a coach with four con- 

 stables before a magistrate ; and, although the man himself was 

 not ill, the four constables died from a short putrid fever ; but 

 the contagion extended to no others. From these facts it would 

 almost appear as if the effluvium of one set of men shut up for 

 some time together was poisonous when inhaled by others ; and 

 possibly more so, if the men be of different races. Mysterious 

 as this circumstance appears to be, it is not more surprising than 

 that the body of one's fellow-creature, directly after death, and 

 before putrefaction has commenced, should often be of so dele- 

 terious a quality, that the mere puncture from an instrument 

 used in its dissection, should prove fatal. 



lIl/i. Early in the morning we passed the Nepean in a ferry 

 boat. The river, although at this spot both broad and deep, had 

 a very small body of running water. Having crossed a low 

 piece of land on the opposite side, we reached the slope of the 

 Blue Mountains. The ascent is not steep, the road having been 

 cut with much care on the side of a sandstone cliff. On the 

 summit an almost level plain extends, which, rising impercep- 

 tibly to the westward, at last attains a height of more than 

 3000 feet. From so grand a title as Blue Mountains, and 

 from their absolute altitude, I expected to have seen a bold chain 

 of mountains crossing the country ; but instead of this, a sloping 

 plain presents merely an inconsiderable front to the low land 

 near the coast. From this first slope, the view of the extensive 

 woodland to the east was striking, and the surrounding trees 



Spain, vol. iv.) says, that the great epidemics at Panama and Callao are 

 " marked " by the arrival of ships from Chile, because the people from that 

 temperate region, first experience the fatal effects of the torrid zones. I 

 may add, that I have heard it stated in Shropshire, that sheep, which have 

 been imported from vessels, although themselves in a healthy condition, 

 if placed in the same fold with others, frequently produce sickness in the 

 flock. 



