610 The Andes and the Amazons. 



the women ; and the population of the Maranon derives 

 little or no increase from a license as regards mistresses, 

 which defeats the only possible object of its toleration — 

 an increase of inhabitants. The very great imprudence 

 of the women at the time of their menstrual flow often 

 results in complaints which tend to chronic bad health and 

 sterility, to which their medication not iinfrequently also 

 tends. 



The lymphatic glands easily become the seat of suppii- 

 ration, and it is somewhat the rule for the Anglo-Saxon to 

 go through a course of axillary or inguinal induration and 

 suppuration, which appears to be a sort of acclimating 

 process, for a little while after he arrives out. The system 

 recovers itself easily. It is rare to find the Anglo-Saxons 

 having dysentery, nor does their appetite fail them mate- 

 rially — and generally they are the authors of their ills in 

 this climate. The want of variety in diet is, among them, 

 as also among the natives, a constant subject of complaint ; 

 and the unalterable scale of dried fish, plantains, and the 

 disagreeable " charapa " (the turtle of the Amazons) is con- 

 sidered as the author of most of the sufferings of the Mar- 

 anon people. 



Among the eruptive fevers, the small-pox now and then 

 has made its appearance among the villages on the Mara- 

 non, and played sad havoc among the Indian population, 

 who wither under its presence. Some three years since it 

 spread on the margins of the Ucayali River ; and last year, 

 when the writer was on this stream's whole length, it was 

 a rarity to see a hut or village. The Indian, when taken 

 sick, believes that the demon of evil is the malicious spirit 

 of some personal enemy; and if the invalid dies, they 

 burn up his huts, bows, and arrows — in fact, every thing 

 he owns — and move off as far from the supposed bad 

 genius as is possible. During the epidemic among them 



