EUCALYPTUS TREES. 61 



perature of the island entirely changed ; even drought 

 was experienced in the midst of the ocean, and thun- 

 der-showers were rarely any longer witnessed. The 

 lagoons, marshes, and swamps along the seaboard 

 were no longer filled with water, but gave off nox- 

 ious gases ; while the river - waters became impure 

 from various refuse. After a violent inundation, in 

 February, 1865, followed by a period of complete dry- 

 ness, fever, of a low type, set in, against which the 

 remedies employed in ordinary febrile cases proved 

 utterly valueless. From the waterless sides of the 

 lagoons, pestilential malaria arose, exposed to which 

 the laborers fell on the field, and, in some instances, 

 died within a few hours afterward. But scarcity of 

 good food among the destitute classes, and inadequate 

 sewag^arrangement, predisposed also to the dread- 

 ful effect of the fever, at the time. As stated by my- 

 self, on a former public occasion, marshes should 

 either be fully drained or the means of continuing 

 them submerged should not be withdrawn. Dr. 

 Rogers very properly insists that the plateaux and 

 highlands of Mauritius must be replanted, alone 

 on sanitary reasons. The small island of Malta re- 

 quires, at this moment, to make strenuous effort for 

 wood culture, to render tillage further possible and 

 the clime more tolerable. The once forest-covered 

 hills, which bordered the rich garden country of Mur- 

 cia, in Moorish times, are now masses of arid rocks ; 

 while Spain, nowadays, is even helpless to obtain its 

 very fuel, and thus all its technologic industries must 

 languish. No wonder, then, if our here much-disre- 

 garded Eucalypts are called there the trees of the 

 future. 



