Voyage Scientifique en Moree. 345 



views in lithography, although well executed, might have been ad- 

 vantageously bestowed on objects of higher value, leaving these sub- 

 jects of amateur interest in the hands of private individuals, who 

 would have been sure to avail themselves of the opportunity of pub- 

 lishing them. Nearly a year was devoted to the expedition, which 

 sailed from Toulon in January 1829, and returned in December of 

 the same year, previous to which it had been suddenly stopped in its 

 career by the dreadful pestilence of malaria, or marsh intermittent 

 fever, which in all ages has infected the shores of Greece, and the 

 prevalence of which has been increased by the want of cultivation 

 consequent on the invasion of the Mahometans. For this very se- 

 rious result, we conceive some parties, either the government at 

 home, or those in immediate command of the commission, must have 

 been very highly to blame. Every one who has the slightest know- 

 ledge of the Mediterranean is aware, that after the summer solstice 

 the marshy shores of nearly the whole range on both sides is subject 

 to this fever, which increases in force with the advance of the season, 

 and attains its maximum of virulence in the beginning of September, 

 after which it is checked by the rains, which in general fall from the 

 10th to the 18th of that month, and induce a salutary and beneficial, 

 as well as most agreeable, change in the temperature. Not only the 

 general precautions founded on the knowledge of this unvarying 

 course of nature were unnoticed, but the common and unerring- 

 warnings of danger, the presence of myriads of musquitos, which as- 

 sailed them in the deltas and marshes of Western Greece, were 

 equally disregarded, until they were roused to the sense of their si- 

 tuation by a simultaneous attack of nearly the whole party, which 

 put an abrupt termination to their proceedings, and compelled them 

 to disperse and seek for safety in a more healthy climate. 



Now it is very clear, that, by the exercise of a little discretion and 

 forethought, proper stations might have been selected, whence the 

 observations could have been carried on according to the season with 

 perfect safety, and, by changing place to the islands or to the elevated 

 grounds during the worst period, examining the pestilential marshes 

 at the proper time, better results would have been obtained, and the 

 parties engaged saved from carrying, as we have no doubt some of 

 them will, the remembrance of this improvident arrangement to pre- 

 mature graves. 



The narrative, which occupies the first volume, is drawn up by M. 

 Bory de St Vincent. In some parts the more remarkable animals 

 they met with are mentioned, but in general it is entirely personal, 



