34 



on their knees to offer a momentary prayer ; an 

 affecting ceremony, which, while it brought to 

 our remembrance those times, when the primitive 

 Christians considered themselves as members 

 of the same family, seemed to blend mankind 

 into one common feeling from the sentiment of 

 a common evil. The corpse of the Asturian was 

 brought upon deck during the night, and the 

 priest entreated, that it might not be committed 

 to the waves till after sunrise, in order to pay it 

 the last rites, according to the usage of the Rom- 

 ish church. There was not an individual on 

 board, who did not sympathise with the fate of 

 this young man, whom we had beheld, but a 

 few days before, full of cheerfulness and health. 



The event I have just related proved the dan- 

 ger of this malignant fever* the victims of which, 

 we apprehended, might be very numerous, if a con- 

 tinuance of calms should lengthen the passage 

 from Cumana to the Havannah. On board a ship 

 of war, or a transport, the death of a few individuals 

 commonly makes no more impression, than the 

 sight of a funeral procession in a populous city : 

 not so on board a packet, the crew of which are 

 few in number, and where the persons who have 

 the same end in view form habits of intimacy with 

 each other. The passengers of the Pizarro, who 

 had not yet felt the symptoms of the disease, 

 resolved to leave the vessel at the first place 

 * Typhus, Sauvages ; Febris nervosa, Frank, 



