460 CHARLES DARWIN 



that there might be no appearance 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 malig- 

 nant fevers having broken out, although the parties them- 

 selves, who were the cause, were not affected. 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 con- 

 stables 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 appear 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. 



ifth. 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 the side of a 

 sandstone cliff. On the summit an almost level plain extends, 

 which, rising imperceptibly to the westward, at last attains 

 a height of more than 3000 feet. From so grand a title as 

 Blue Mountains, and from their absolute altitude, I expected 

 to have seen a bold chain of mountains crossing the coun- 



us to the inhabitants who unanimously agreed in the story." In Vancou- 

 ver's Voyage, there is a somewhat similar statement with respect to Otaheite. 

 Dr. Dieffenbach, in a note to his translation of this Journal, states that the 

 same fact is universally believed by the inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, 

 and in parts of New Zealand. It is impossible that such a belief should 

 have become universal in the northern hemisphere, at the Antipodes, and 

 in the Pacific, without some good foundation. Humboldt (Polit. Essay on 

 King of New Spain, vol. iv.) says, that the great epidemics of Panama and 

 Callao are " marked " by the arrival of ships from Chile, because the people 

 from that temperate 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, frequently produce sick- 

 ness in the flock. 



