]iJO PERU. 



a thin vegetation, which directly withers away and 

 dries up : at this period the air appears to become 

 quite poisonous, both natives and foreigners often 

 being aflected with violent fevers. On the other 

 hand, the Galapagos Archipelago, in the Pacific, 

 v/ith a similar soil, and periodically subject to the 

 same process of vegetation, is perfectly healthy. 

 Humboldt has observed, that, " under the torrid 

 zone, the smallest marshes are the inost dangerous, 

 being suiTounded, as at Vera Cruz and Carthage- 

 na, with an arid and sandy soil, which raises the 

 temperature of the ambient air,"* On the coast of 

 Peru, however, the temperature is not hot to any 

 excessive degi-ee, and perhaps, in consequence, the 

 intermittent fevers are not of the most malignant 

 order. In all unhealthy countries, the gi-eatest risk 

 is run by sleeping on shore. Is this owing to the 

 state of the body during sleep, or to a greater 

 abundance of miasma at such times 1 It appears 

 certain that those who stay on board a vessel, 

 though anchored at only a short distance from the 

 coast, generally suffer less than those actually on 

 shore. On the other hand, I have heard of one re- 

 niai'kable case where a fever broke out among the 

 crew of a man-of-war some hundred miles off the 

 coast of Africa, and at the very same time that one 

 of those fearful periodsf of death commenced at 

 Sierra Leone. 



No state in South America, since the declaration 

 of independence, has suffered more from anarchy 

 than Peru. At the time of our visit, there were 

 four chiefs in ai'ms contending for supremacy in the 



* Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, vol. iv., p. 199. 



t A similar interesting case is recorded m the Madras Medical 

 Quart. Journ., 1839, p. 340. Dr. Ferguson, in his admirable Paper 

 (see 9th vol. of Edmburgh Royal Trans.), shows clearly that the 

 poison is generated in the drying process ; and hence that dry, hot 

 countries are often the most unhealthy. 



