OF THE MARSH POISON. 281 



to health. The top and shoulders of the hill had been cleared 

 of wood, and during a continuance of dry weather, the garri- 

 son had no source of disease within itself, but this was amply, 

 though but temporarily supplied, as soon as the rains had sa- 

 turated the soil on which it stood. Thus an uncommonly 

 rainy season at Barbadoes, seldom failed in that perfectly dry 

 and well-cleared country, to induce for a time general sick- 

 ness ; while at Trinidad, — which is almost all swampy, and the 

 centre of the island may be called a sea of swamp, where it 

 always rains at least nine months in the year, — if it only rain- 

 ed eight, or if at any time there was a cessation of the preser- 

 ving rains, the worst kind of remittent fevers were sure to 

 make their appearance. General dryness of soil, however, is 

 far from being the ordinary characteristic of our West India 

 colonies. The swamp is too often exposed to the continued 

 operation of a tropical sun, and its approach to dryness is the 

 harbinger of disease and death to the inhabitants in its vicini- 

 ty. On the whole, it may truly be said, that although exces- 

 sive rains will evidently cause the acknowledged wholesome 

 and unwholesome soils to change places for a time, in respect 

 to health, a year of stunted vegetation, through dry seasons, 

 and uncommon drought, is infallibly a year of pestilence to the 

 greater part of the West India colonies. 



In some other respects, the history of Miasmata in these 

 countries was curious and interesting. Thus at the town of 

 Point au Pitre, Guadaloupe, which is situated amidst some of 

 the most putrid marshes in the world, the stench of which is 

 almost never absent from the streets, the place was far from 

 being uniformly unhealthy. Strangers, however much they 

 might be annoyed with the smell, often resorted to it with im- 

 punity. No more was its first out-post fort Louis, where the 

 waters are so stagnant and putrid, that it is even more ofifen- 



n n 2 _ sive 



