ISO A HISTORY OF 



all other kind of air ; vegetables may render the air unwholesome by 

 their supply ; and animal putrefation seems to furnish a quantity of 

 vapour, at least as noxious as any of the former. All these united, 

 generally make up the mass of respiration, and are, when mixed to- 

 gether, harmless ; but any one of them, for a long time singly pre- 

 dominant, becomes at length fatal. 



The effects of heat in producing a noxious quality in the air, are 

 well known. Those torrid regions under the Line are always un- 

 wholesome. At Senegal, I am told, the natives consider forty as a 

 very advanced time of life, and generally die of old age at fifty. At 

 Carthagena,* in America, where the heat of the hottest day ever 

 known in Europe is continual, where, during their winter season, these 

 dreadful heats are united with a continual succession of thunder, rain, 

 and tempests, arising from their intenseness, the wan and livid com- 

 plexions of the inhabitants might make strangers suspect that they 

 were just recovered from some dreadful distemper ; the actions of the 

 natives are conformable to their colour ; in all their motions there is 

 somewhat relaxed and languid ; the heat of the climate even affects 

 their speech, which is soft and slow, and their words generally broken. 

 Travellers from Europe retain their strength and ruddy colour in that 

 climate, possibly for three or four months ; but afterwards suffer such 

 decays in both, that they are no longer to be distinguished from the 

 inhabitants by their complexion. However, this languid and spirit- 

 less existence is frequently drawled on sometimes even to eighty. 

 Young persons are generally most affected by the heat of the climate, 

 which spares the more aged ; but all, upon their arrival on the coasts, 

 are subject to the same train of fatal disorders. Few nations have 

 experienced the mortality of these coasts, so much as our own : in our 

 unsuccessful attack upon Carthagena, more than three parts of our 

 army were destroyed by the climate alone ; and those that returned 

 from that fatal expedition, found their former vigour irretrievably 

 gone. In our more fortunate expedition, which gave us the Havana, 

 we had little reason to boast of our success; instead of a third, not a 

 fifth part of the army were left survivors of their victory, the climate 

 being an enemy that even heroes cannot conquer. 



The distempers that thus proceed from the cruel malignity of those 

 climates, are many : that, for instance, called the Chapotonadas, car- 

 ries oh' d multitude of people ; and extremely thins the crews of 

 European snips, whom gain tempts into those inhospitable regions. 

 The naturo of this distemper is but little known, being caused in some 

 persons by cold, in others by indigestion. - But its effects are far from 

 being obscuro ; it is generally fatal in three or four days : upon its 

 seizing the patient, it brings on what is there called the black vomity 

 which is the sad symptom after which none are ever found to recover. 

 Some, when the vomit attacks them, are seized with a delirium, that, 

 were the} not tied down, they would tear themselves to pieces, and 

 thus expire in the midst of this furious paroxysm. This disorder, in 

 milder climates, takes the name of the bilious fever, and is attended 

 wiUi milder symptoms, but very dangerous in all. 



Ulloa, vol. i. p. 48 



