102 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



of larger growth, more valuable woods, more beautiful 

 flowers, more delicious fruits, and more aromatic gums. 

 There too the animals are more numerous and of greater 

 variety, and the individuals of the different fpecies of 

 greater beauty and fize ; the birds have a finer plumage 

 and a fweeter fong : but all thefe advantages are coun- 

 terbalanced by equal inconveniences ; for there the 

 beafls of prey are more terrible, the reptiles more poi- 

 fonous, and the infefls more pernicious. The earth 

 there never feels the effefts of winter, nor is the atmof- 

 phere fubjecled to a hurtful vicifFitude of feafons. A 

 perpetual fpring reigns upon the earth, and a perpetual 

 fummer in the air. The inhabitants are ufed to that ex- 

 ceflive heat, but from the conftant fweating which it 

 occafions, together with the ufe of thofe exquifite fruits 

 which the bountiful earth prefents to them in fuch abund- 

 ance, they are often aife^led with diforders unknown in 

 other climates. The cold countries are neither fo fruitful 

 nor fo beautiful, but on the other hand they are more fa- 

 vourable to health, and the animals are lefs hurtful to 

 man. In the temperate countries (at leafl in many of 

 them, and particularly in the vale of Mexico), are en- 

 joyed the advantages of the cold, and many of the plea- 

 fures of the hot climates without the inconveniences of 

 either. The mofl common difeafes of the hot countries 

 are intermittent fevers, fpafms, and confumptions ; and 

 in the port of Vera Cruz, within thefe few years, the 

 black vomiting (jii) : in other parts, catarrhs, fluxes, pleu- 



riiies, 



ropean fruits, fuch as apples, peaches, pears, &c. yet what fignifies the want of 

 a few of thofe vegetables, compared with the unfpeakahle profufion and variety 

 of plants ferving both for food and medicine, which are to be found in thofe 

 countries? 



{m) Ulloa, and other hiftorians of America, defcrlbe the fpafms and tlie 

 black vomiting. The latter difeafe was not known in that country before tlie 

 year 1716. 



