BAD REPUTATION ILL DESERVED. 147 



Para, at the mouth of the Amazon, to the foot of the Andes. 

 The natural consequence is, that tliere is an enormous evapora- 

 tion, daily, from that extensive water surface, which produces 

 such a cooling of the water, that in many places, when bathing, 

 I have found it rather cold. And the natural consequence is, 

 that while, during mid-day, when the sun is high, the tempera- 

 ture is .very high, the sea-breeze tempers the heat constantly, 

 and when the sun is under, there is a succession of reductions 

 of temperature, which makes the nights cool. In the valley of 

 the Amazon, though under the equator, we have a regular 

 alternation of not over one day's heat, with cool nights. Such 

 a delicious climate, I believe, exists nowhere else on earth. 

 The natural consequence of these physical conditions is, that 

 the fertility of the land is unbounded. 



Now, you may ask, how is it, then, that the Amazon has such 

 a bad reputation ? — that all travellers who visit those countries 

 speak of malarious diseases, speak of intermittent fevers as 

 reaching everywhere, speak of a population who look like skele- 

 tons, in consequence of their exhaustion by the climate ? There 

 is a great deal of truth in the statement that these things occur 

 there, but they are not the consequence of the climate ; they 

 are the natural consequence of the mode of life of the natives. 

 There are frequent rains, and these rains are very agreeable ; 

 I can say there is nothing more agreeable than to receive a 

 shower in the open air ; it is a natural mode of bathing, and 

 the inhabitants go and take their bath in tlie shower, every day, 

 but instead of changing their clothes, they allow them to dry on 

 their bodies. They will do that twice or three times a day, 

 without taking any precaution to keep dry, and in those alter- 

 nations between dryness and moisture, even though the climate 

 is fine, you see at once there must be a predisposition towards 

 fever ; and if, in connection with that, the diet is insufficient, 

 the population will be unhealthy. The indolent character of 

 the population leads them to take very little care. Tliey are 

 not provident ; they do not accumulate a sufficiency of whole- 

 some food in the right season, and the natural consequence is, 

 that in a land of plenty, where all the productions of nature 

 tliat may be converted into food for man abound, the natives 

 die literally of hunger, and you see starving populations every- 

 where. Of course, these results will not always be referred to 



