54 THE FUNGI PREVAIL AT NIGHT 



during the day time. The precincts of the city of Charles- 

 ton are especially pestilential, and the country fever, as 

 it is called, is remarkably fatal to the residents, of towns 

 and of the upper country. To sleep one night in this dis- 

 trict, puts in peril the life of the unacclimated; but no one 

 believes that the most prolonged visit by day is attended 

 with any danger. 



In Major Tulloch's masterly report on the health of the 

 military and naval service, he observes that, " the sick- 

 ness of the shore very rarely extends to the shipping, 

 though only a few hundred yards from the land. The 

 visits of sailors to the shore by day, did not produce dis- 

 ease. In the Ceylon service, the mortality of the marine 

 force by fever, was 3 in 1000, of the military, 24.6, or 

 more than eight times as great. 



The frigate Potomac, on a three years' cruise, visited 

 some of the most insalubrious stations of tropical regions, 

 and yet lost only 26 men, of whom not one died of fever. 

 Dr. Foltz accounts for this happy exemption from mala- 

 rious diseases, by stating that his men were never per- 

 mitted to remain ashore during the night. 



During three voyages into tropical regions, I always ad- 

 vised the adherence to the safe rule of compelling the 

 seamen to return to the ship at night; and although we 

 watered in places notorious for their insalubrity, and emi- 

 nently destructive to parties which ventured to remain 

 ashore at night, we did not lose one man by fevers of any 

 kind. In some of these places, the water was stagnant 

 and irritating at first, and caused inflammation of the skin 

 of the legs of the waterers. The heavy odour of the rank 

 vegetation, and the damp feel of the air among shallow 

 pools, where myriads of insects sported, gave lively evi- 

 dence of a pestilential locality. Besides that ? the sickly 



