DECREASE OF THE ABORIGINES. 221 



tliis fact remarkable is, that there might be no ap- 

 pearance of disease among the crew of the ship 

 which conveyed this destructive importation." This 

 statement is not quite so extraordinary as it at first 

 appears ; for several cases are on record of the 

 most malignant fevers having broken out, although 

 the parties themselves, who were the cause, were 

 not aflected. In the early part of the reign of 

 George III., a prisoner who had been confined in 

 a dungeon was taken in a coach, with four consta- 

 bles, before a magistrate ; and, although the man 

 himself was not ill, the four constables died from a 

 short putrid fever ; but the contagion extended to 

 no others. From these facts it would almost ap- 

 pear as if the effluvium of one set of men shut up 

 for some time together was poisonous when inhaled 

 by others, and possibly more so, if the men be of 

 different races. Mysterious as this circumstance 

 appears to be, it is not more surprising than that 

 the body of one's fellow-creature, directly after 

 death, and before putrefaction has commenced, 

 should often be of so deleterious a quality, that the 

 mere puncture from an instrument used in its dis- 

 section should prove fatal. 



Yith. — Early in the morning we passed the 

 Nepean in a ferry-boat. The river, although at 

 this spot both broad and deep, had a very small 

 body of running water. Having crossed a low 

 piece of land on the opposite side, we reached the 

 slope of the Blue Mountains. The ascent is not 

 steep, the road having been cut with much care on 



that the great epidemics at Panama and Callao are " marked" by 

 the arrival of ships from Chile, because the people from that tem- 

 perate region first experience the fatal effects of the torrid zones. 

 I may add, that I have heard it stated in Shropshire, that sheep, 

 which have been imported from vessels, although themselves in a 

 healthy condition, if placed in the same fold with others, fre- 

 quently produce sickness in the flock. 

 T 8 



