CONTAGION. 129 



covered only with flat roofs made of hardened mud ; 

 and on the mole shiploads of wheat were piled up, 

 being thus left for weeks together without any 

 shelter. 



I cannot say I liked the very little I saw of 

 Peru : in summer, however, it is said that the cli- 

 mate is much pleasanter. In all seasons, both in- 

 habitants and foreigners suffer from severe attacks 

 of ague. This disease is common on the whole 

 coast of Peru, but is unknown in the interior. The 

 attacks of illness which arise from miasma never 

 fail to appear most mysterious. So difficult is it to 

 judge from the aspect of a country whether or not 

 it is healthy, that if a person had been told to choose 

 within the tropics a situation appearing favourable 

 for health, very probably he would have named this 

 coast. The plain round the outskirts of Callao is 

 sparingly covered with a coarse grass, and in some 

 parts there are a few stagnant, though very small, 

 pools of water. The miasma, in all probability, 

 arises from these ; for the town of Arica is similar- 

 ly circumstanced, and its healthiness was much im- 

 proved by the drainage of some little pools. Mi- 

 asma is not always produced by a luxuriant vege- 

 tation with an ardent climate ; for many parts of 

 Brazil, even where there are mai'shes and a rank 

 vegetation, are much more healthy than this sterile 

 coast of Peru. The densest forests in a temperate 

 climate, as in Cliiloe, do not seem in the slight- 

 est degree to affect the healthy condition of the at- 

 mosphere. 



The island of St. Jago, at the Cape de Verds, 

 offers another strongly-marked instance of a coun- 

 try which any one would have expected to find 

 most healthy, being very much the contrary. I 

 have described the bare and open plains as sup- 

 porting, during a few weeks after the rainy season, 

 II. 9 



