468 



mass celebrated every year in the cathedral, 

 in the beginning of September, has perpetuat- 

 ed the memory of this epidemic, in the same 

 manner as processions have fixed in the Spanish 

 colonies the date of the great earthquakes. 

 The year 1696 was indeed very remarkable for 

 the yellow fever, which prevailed with violence 

 in all the West India islands, where it had 

 only begun to establish it's empire* in 1688. 

 But how can we give credit to an epidemical 

 black vomit, which lasted sixteen months with- 

 out interruption, and which may be said to 

 have passed through that very cool season, 

 when the thermometer at Caraccas falls to 

 twelve or thirteen degrees ? Can the typhus 

 be more ancient in the elevated valley of Ca- 

 raccas, than in the most frequented ports of 

 Terra Firma ? According to Ulloa it was un- 

 known in these latter before 1729. I doubt 

 therefore the epidemic of 1696 having been the 

 yellow fever, or the real typhus of America. 

 Black evacuations often accompany bilious re- 

 mittent fevers ; and are no more characteristic 

 than hematemeses of that severe disease now 

 known at the Havannah and Vera Cruz by 

 the name of vomito. But if no accurate de- 

 scription demonstrate, that the typhus of Ame- 

 rica existed at Caraccas as early as the end of 



* Balljr, p. 34. 



