350 PERU. [ciiAi>. xvi. 



tains, seen in stages, one above the other, through openings in the 

 clouds, had a very grand appearance. It is almost 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 pleasanter. 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. 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 situa- 

 tion 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 circumstanced, 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 x 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 Yerds, 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, and periodically 

 sul'ject to the same process of vegetation, is perfectly healthy. 



