UNSANITARY CONDITIONS. 183 
tion also, upon a galloping steed, rides in the suburbs of Nassau 
with an unchecked rein to his goal—the portal of death. It is 
possible for leprosy to lurk in the dense chaparral of low lands, 
and under the thick mangro groves that, with living arches and 
festoons, beautify and adorn the miniature islands that rise out 
of the shallow waters of the brackish and stagnant lakes. 
The city of Nassau, as we have shown, is, in a sanitary point 
of view, very favorably situated. Bottomed upon a rock of a 
porous nature, which dips towards the harbor, and speedily ab- 
sorbs or carries off the heaviest rain-falls, facing the north and 
skirting the sea, having within its limits no low and wet lands, 
the prevailing winds come to it directly from the ocean laden 
with refreshment and health. We examined the annual medical 
reports of the surgeon connected with the military department 
at Nassau for eleven years, from 1867 to 1878. Only that of 
1873 gave statistics of the wind. From that report it appeared 
that during the year 1873 the wind. blew from the south at nine 
o’clock A. M. only three times—once in June and twice in Novem- 
ber—and at three o’clock P. M. only once during the entire year, 
and that was in November. The report states that in 1873 the 
wind blew from the north-east on 175 days, at nine a. M., and 
from the south-east 111 days, and that at three P. M. it was north- 
east 185 days, and south-east 121 days; while it blew from the 
west only two days. During the ten years covered by Gov. Raw- 
son’s table, which we have quoted, the wind from the south is 
stated to have averaged eleven days inahundred. The wind 
was from the south very rarely while we were at Nassau in 1879, 
but it atoned for its long intervals of absence by being very sul- 
try, debilitating, and exceedingly disagreeable. As it sweeps 
over the low, wet surface of the center of the island, we believe 
it unfavorable to health, although the distance is measured by a 
very few miles. While we were at Nassau in 1880, the wind was 
