362 CAUSE OF MIASMA. [chap. xvi. 



openings in the clouds, had a very grand appearance. It 

 is ahiiost become a proverb, that rain never falls in the 

 lower part of Peru. Yet this can hardly be considered 

 correct ; for during almost every day of our visit there 

 was a thick drizzling mist, which was sufficient to make 

 the streets muddy and one's clothes damp ; this the people 

 are pleased to call Peruvian dew. That much rain does not 

 fall is very certain, for the houses are covered only with flat 

 roofs made of hardened mud ; and on the mole ship-loads 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 climate is much 

 pleasanteF. In all seasons, both inhabitants and foreigners 

 suffer from severe attacks of ague. This disease is common 

 on the whole coast of Peru, but is unknown in the interior. 

 Ihi 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 was similarly cir- 

 cumstanced, and its healthiness was much improved by 

 the drainage of some little pools. Miasma is not always 

 produced by a luxuriant vegetation with an ardent climate ; 

 for many parts of Brazil, even where there are marshes and 

 a rank vegetation, are much more healthy than this sterile 

 coast of Peru. The densest forests in a temperate climate, 

 as in Chiloe, do not seem in the slightest degree to affect 

 the healthy condition of the atmosphere. 



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

 another strongly-marked instance of a country, which 

 any one would have expected to find most healthy, being 

 very much the contrary. I have described the bare and 

 open plains as supporting, during a few weeks after the 

 rainy season, 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 affected with violent fevers. On the other hand, the 

 Galapagos Archipelago, In the Pacific, with a similar soil, 



