< MANGR VE HE A VIXESS.* 



149 



like exaggeration; but I well remember, at 

 Hyderabad, in Sind, that during the inundation 

 of the Indus we could perceive in the morning 

 that the maize had lengthened during the night, 

 and the same is the case with certain 6 toad- 

 stools ' and fungi in the Brazil. 



Upon this waste of rank vegetation the sun 

 darts an oppressive and malignant beam. In 

 the driest season the 6 mangrove heaviness ' of 

 the western coast and the cadaverous foetor 

 announce miasma ; after the rains the landscape 

 is redolent of disease and death. 



The cottages of small proprietors and slaves 



strew the farms. Thev are huts of wattle and 



t/ 



rufous loamy dab, to which large unbaked bricks 

 of red clay are sometimes preferred. The usual 

 cajan pent-roof forms deep dark eaves, propped 

 by untrimmed palm-boles. These dwellings are 

 unwholesome, because none boast of a second 

 storey ; they are not even built upon piles, and 

 thus their sole defence against the surrounding 

 malaria is the shrubbery planted by nature's 

 hand. Sickness seems generally, both in the 

 island and on the continent, to follow turning 

 up fresh soil, and the highlands are often more 

 subject to miasma than the lowlands. 



The lines of communication consist of mere 



