66 YELLOW FEVER. 



malarial fevers of severe type being common; yellow 

 fever and black vomit being also here endemic. " Vomito " 

 as it is called, generally begins about April, when the 

 hot weather sets in, and lasts till October. 



Vera Cruz,* the usual port for entering the Repub- 

 lic, from the eastward, " is one of the most unhealthy 

 places on the globe." f When the author last visited 

 it, the jungle came up to within a short distance of 

 the outskirts of the town, and numbers of turkey 

 buzzards lived among the houses and walked in flocks 

 about the streets. 



But fortunately in illustration of what we have 

 already said as to the possibility of being sometimes 

 able to pass rapidly through an unhealthy district on 

 the coast, to a high and healthy station inland even 

 before the days of railways, all that the prudent 

 traveller needed to do in this case in order to avoid 

 the sickly season, was to proceed some twelve hours 

 up the country to Jalapa, a distance of about 52 miles 

 by the old trail, leading mostly through the forest and 

 jungle. Since 1870, however, a railway, making a 

 detour up to about 70 miles, makes the matter more 

 easy still and at Jalapa, which lies within the Tierra 

 Templada, some 4500 feet above the sea-level, a 

 delicious climate, combined with magnificent scenery, 

 can be enjoyed, very little warmer than an ordinary 

 English summer day, above the reach of the dreaded 

 "Yellow Jack." It is true that people have died 

 of yellow fever at Jalapa, as they have sometimes done 

 at the quarantine stations in England, but they were 

 persons who came up there from the Tierra Caliente, 



* Vera Cruz., Lat. 19 n' 54" N., Long. 96 8' o" W. 

 j- Stanford's Compendium, p. 78. 



