TOPOGRAPHY. 



333 



beasts*, in the town of Tatasi, belonging to the department 

 of Chichas. On the first access of this frenzy, there are not 

 sufficient powers to restrain the unfortunate victim, who, for- 

 getful of all shame and human necessity, forsakes his bed, 

 flees from the habitations of men, runs impetuously over the 

 mountains in the environs, and, rushing from precipice to 

 precipice, at length hurls himself from the summit of the 

 steep rock. It usually happens that, in falling from a consi- 

 derable height, he is bruised to death ; but if, by a rare casu- 

 alty, he survives, in proportion as he recovers his bodily 

 health, the mental powers return to their just equilibrium, 

 and there is no longer any vestige of this terrible malady. 

 We shall not undertake to decide whether the effluvia from the 

 mines of that territory, which are very prone to commotions, 

 are in any manner the cause of this phenomenon ; or whether, 

 which is more probable, it is owing to the natural tempera- 

 ment of the inhabitants of the country : it is certain that it oc- 

 curs with much frequency. 



This passage has so great an analogy to the one we find in 

 the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and in all the other mythological 

 authors, relative to the leap from the rock of Leucate, that 

 the one seems to have served as the archetype of the other. 

 Who can say whether the whole of this fable, in its origin, 

 had any other foundation beside that of the concurrence of 

 several fa6ls similar to those which arc witnessed in Chichas ? 



* Experience has demonstrated, that the animals originally brought from Eu- 

 rope, such as horses, oxen, sheep, &c. are the only ones atFedled by tiiis ma- 

 lady, to which those that are natural to the country, such as the vicunas, huanacos, 

 &c. are not liable. 



We, 



