1835.] HYDROPHOBIA. 257 



hot and others cold? why there were mountains in Chile, and not a 

 hill in La Plata ? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced 

 the greater number ; some, however (like a few in England who are a 

 century behindhand), thought that all such inquiries were useless 

 and impious ; and that it was sufficient that God had thus made the 

 mountains. 



An order had recently been issued that all stray dogs should be 

 killed, and we saw many lying dead on the road. A great number had 

 lately gone mad, and several men had been bitten and had died in 

 consequence. On several occasions hydrophobia has prevailed in this 

 valley. It is remarkable thus to find so strange and dreadful a disease 

 appearing time after time in the same isolated spot. It has been 

 remarked that certain villages in England are in like manner much 

 more subject to this visitation than others. Dr. Unanue states that 

 hydrophobia was first know in South America in 1803: this statement 

 is corroborated by Azara and Ulloa having never" heard of it in their 

 time. Dr. Unanue says that it broke out in Central America, and slowly 

 travelled southward. It reached Arequipa in 1807 ; and it is said that 

 some men there, who had not been bitten, were affected, as were some 

 negroes, who had eaten a bullock which had died of hydrophobia. At 

 lea forty-two people thus miserably perished. The disease came on 

 between twelve and ninety days after the bite ; and in those cases 

 where it did come on death ensued invariably within five days. After 

 1808, a long interval ensued without any cases. On inquiry, I did 

 not hear of hydrophobia in Van Diemen's Land, or in Australia ; and 

 Burchell says, that during the five years he was at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, he never heard of an instance of it. Webster asserts that at the 

 Azores hydrophobia has never occurred ; and the same assertion has 

 been made with respect to Mauritius and St. Helena.* In so strange 

 a disease, some information might possibly be gained by considering 

 the circumstances under which it originates in distant climates ; for it 

 is improbable that a dog already bitten should have been brought to 

 these distant countries. 



At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito, and asked 

 permission to sleep there. He said he had been wandering about the 

 mountains for seventeen days, having lost his way. He started from 

 Guasco, and being accustomed to travelling in the Cordillera, did not 

 expect any difficulty in following the track to Copiap6 ; but he soon 

 became involved in a labyrinth of mountains, whence he could not 

 escape. Some of his mules had fallen over precipices, and he had been 

 in great distress. His chief difficulty arose from not knowing where to 

 find water in the lower country, so that he was obliged to keep bordering 

 the central ranges. 



We returned down the valley, and on the 22nd reached the town of 



* "Observa. sobre el clima de Lima," p. 67; Azara's "Travels," vol. i., 

 p. 381 ; Ulloa's " Voyage," vol. ii.,p. 28; Burchell's " Travels," vol. ii., p. 524; 

 Webster's " Description of the Azores," p. 124; "Voyage a 1'Isle de France 

 par un Officier du Roi," tome i, p. 248; "Description of St. Helena," 

 p. 123- 



