596 The Andes and the Amazons. 



tioii. The foreigners living and trading on the Maranon 

 have enjoyed singular exemption from this affection. In 

 children, the very common carelessness of parents as re- 

 gards diet will account for most cases among the young. 



After having in our earlier days read of the horrible 

 jungles of the tropics, and later been lectured on the dis- 

 asters of tropical residence in the wilds where the monk- 

 ey, tiger, or anaconda alone is acclimated, the medical 

 traveler is more than surprised at the infrequency of Ma- 

 larial Fevers on the whole Amazons, in whose dense 

 forests nature now " wantons as in her prime." Coming 

 out to a section of the earth whose foreign reputation 

 makes it apparently the home of every thing pestilential 

 in the way of febrile affections, the first thing he hears on 

 the subject, on the Lower Amazons, is the repeated state- 

 ment of the rarity of these disorders on the main river; 

 and as lie travels west to the Peruvian territory on the 

 continuation (the Maranon) of the same stream, the expe- 

 rience of those with whom he may have conversed on his 

 way up assures him repeatedly of the truth, which after 

 awhile his own experience in a great measure will confirm. 

 He will also find that the native red man is less able to 

 resist these malarial fevers, and disappears more easily 

 than the white or Negro. But, when the wanderer leaves 

 the main river and betakes himself to the higher grounds 

 of any of the tributaries of this huge watery cormorant, 

 where he begins to encounter rocky beds to the streams, 

 rocky sides to the rivers, a comparative slight chilliness of 

 air in the mornings and evenings, with a greater frequency 

 of fogs, while the midday is a glowing heat — there begins 

 the Terciana, as the malarial intermittents are called.* 



* Bates, the naturalist, speaking of the healthfulness of the main river of 

 the Amazons, and the country on the tributaries, says: "I began now to un- 

 derstand why the branch rivers of the Amazons were so unhealthy, while the 

 main stream was pretty nearly free from diseases arising from malaria. The 



