UXSANITART CONDITION'S. 183 



tion also, upon a galloping steed, rides in the suburbs of Nassau 

 Avitli an unchecked rein to his goal — the portal of death. It is 

 possible for leprosy to lurk in the dense chaparral of low lands, 

 and under the thick mangro groves that, with living arches and 

 festoons, beautify and adorn the miniature islands that rise out 

 of the ^shallow waters of the brackish and stagnant lakes. 



The city of Nassau, as we have shown, is, in a sanitary point 

 of view, very favorably situated. Bottomed upon a rock of a 

 porous nature, which dips towards the harbor, and speedily ab- 

 sorbs or carries off the heaviest rain-falls, facing the north and 

 skirting the sea, having within its limits no low and wet lands, 

 the prevailing winds come to it directly from the ocean laden 

 with refreshment and health. We examined the annual medical 

 reports of the surgeon connected with the military department 

 at Nassau for eleven years, from 1807 to 1878. Only that of 

 1873 gave statistics of the wind. From that report it appeared 

 that during the year 1873 the wind blew from the south at nine 

 o'clock A. M. only three times — once in Juno and twice in Novem- 

 ber — and at three o'clock p. m. only once during the entire year, 

 and that was in November. The report states that ill 1873 the 

 Avind blew from the north-east on 175 days, at nine a. m., and 

 from the south-east 111 days, and that at three p. m. it was north- 

 east 185 davs, and south-east 121 days; while it blew from the 

 west only two days. During the ten years covered by Gov. Ra\H 

 son's table, which we have quoted, the wind from the south is 

 stated to have averaged eleven days in a hundred. The wind 

 was from the south very rarely while we were at Nassau in 1879, 

 but it atoned for its long intervals of absence by being very sul- 

 try, debilitating, and exceedingly disagreeable. As it sweeps 

 over the low, wet surface of the center of the island, we believe 

 it unfavorable to health, although the distance is measured by a 

 very few miles. While we were at Nassau in 1880, the wind was 



