i2 AEEIVAL AT POETO CABELLO. 



from the coast, near la Villa del Pao, but there was reason 

 to beaeve that this latter place had once been a conttco, or 

 cultivated enclosure. Everywhere else on the continent of 

 America we saw the Parkinsonia, like the Plumeria, only in 

 the gardens of the Indians. 



At Porto Cabello, as at La Gruayra, it is disputed whether 

 the port lies east or west of the town, with which the com- 

 munications are the most frequent. The inhabitants believe 

 that Porto Cabello is north-north-west of Nueva Valencia ; 

 and my observations give a longitude of three or four 

 minutes more towards the west. 



We were received with the utmost kindness in the house 

 of a French physician, M. Juliac, who had studied medicine 

 at Montpelier. His small house contained a collection of 

 things the most various, but which were all calculated to 

 interest travellers. We found works of literature and 

 natural history ; notes on meteorology ; skins of the jaguar 

 and of large aquatic serpents ; live animals, monkeys, arma- 

 dilloes, and birds. Our host was principal surgeon to the 

 royal hospital of Porto Cabello, and was celebrated in the 

 country for his skilful treatment of the yellow fever. 

 During a period of seven years he had seen six or eight 

 thousand persons enter the hospitals, attacked by this 

 cruel malady. He had observed the ravages that the epi- 

 demic caused in Admiral Ariztizabal's fleet, in 1793. That 

 fleet lost nearly a third of its men; for the sailors were 

 almost all unseasoned Europeans, and held unrestrained 

 intercourse with the shore. M. Juliac had heretofore treated 

 the sick as was commonly practised in Terra Firma, and in 

 the island, by bleeding, aperient medicines, and acid drinks. 

 In this treatment no attempt was made to raise the vital 

 powers by the action of stimulants, so that, in attempting to 

 allay the fever, the languor and debility were augmented. 

 In the hospitals, where the sick were crowded, the mortality 

 was often thirty-three per cent, among the white Creoles ; 

 and sixty-five in a hundred among the Europeans recently 

 disembarked. Since a stimulant treatment, the use of opium, 

 of benzoin, and of alcoholic draughts, has been substituted 

 for the eld debilitating method, the mortality has con- 

 siderably diminished. It was believed to be reduced to 

 twenty in a hundred among Europeans, and ten among 



