Chap. VII. YELLOW FEVER. 349 



healthy city desolated by two terrible ejDidemics. The 

 yellow fever, which visited the place the previous year 

 (1850) for the first time since the discovery of the coun- 

 try, still lingered, after having carried off nearly 5 per 

 cent, of the population. The number of persons who 

 were attacked, namely, three-fourths of the entire popu- 

 lation, showed how general is the onslaught of an epi- 

 demic on its first appearance in a place. At the heels 

 of this plague came the smallpox. The yellow fever 

 had fallen most severely on the whites and mamelucos, 

 the negi'oes wholly escaping ; but the smallpox attacked 

 more especially the Indians, negroes, and people of 

 mixed colour, sparing the whites almost entirely, and 

 taking off about a twentieth part of the population in 

 the course of the four months of its stay. I heard 

 many strange accounts of the yellow fever. I believe 

 Para was the second port in Brazil attacked by it. The 

 news of its ravages in Bahia, where the epidemic first 

 appeared, arrived some few days before the disease 

 broke out. The government took all the sanitary pre- 

 cautions that could be thought of ; amongst the rest was 

 the singular one of firing cannon at the street corners, 

 to purify the air. Mr. Norris, the American consul, 

 told me, the first cases of fever occurred near the port, 

 and that it spread rapidly and regularly from house to 

 house, along the streets which run from the waterside 

 to the suburbs, taking about twenty-four hours to reach 

 the end. Some persons related that for several succes- 

 sive evenings before the fever broke out the atmosphere 

 was thick, and that a body of murky vapour accom- 

 panied by a strong stench, travelled from street to 



