278 ON THE NATURE AND HISTORY 



for example, about a mile inland, is a large village, and royal 

 hunting residence in the Alentejo, which is always reputed to 

 be very healthy till the beginning of the autumnal season, 

 when every person, who has the means of making his escape, 

 flies the place. In their superstitious fear, the inhabitants de- 

 clare, that even the horses and other animals would be seized 

 with fever if left behind, and therefore they always remove the 

 royal stud. The country around is perfectly open, though 

 very low, and flooded with water during the whole of the rainy 

 season ; but at the time of the periodical sickness it is always 

 most distressingly dry ; and exactly in proportion to the pre- 

 vious drought, and consequent dryness of soil, is the quantum 

 of sickness. I have visited it upon these occasions, and found 

 it the most parched spot I ever saw. The houses of the mi- 

 serable people that were left behind being literally buried in 

 loose dry sand, that obstructed the doors and windows. 



Cividad Rodrigo affords another illustration of the same. It 

 is situated on a rocky bank of the river Agueda, a remarkably 

 clear stream ; but the approach to it on the side of Portugal is 

 through a bare open hollow country, that has been likened to 

 the dried up bed of an extensive lake ; and upon more than 

 one occasion, when this low land, after having been flooded in 

 the rainy season, had become as dry as a brick-ground, with 

 the vegetation utterly burned up, there arose fevers to our 

 troops, which for malignity of type could only be matched by 

 those before mentioned on the Guadiana. 



At the town of Corea, in Spanish Estremadura, not very 

 dissimilarly situated, on the banks of the Alagon (also a very 

 pure and limpid stream,) our troops experienced similar re- 

 sults ; with this addition clearly demonstrated, that no spot of 

 the pestiferous savannah below the town, was so much to be 

 dreaded as the immediate shores of the river j so that even the 



running 



