THE TELLOW FEVER. 
379 
At the time of my abode at La Guayra, the yellow fever, 
or calentura cmarilla, had been known only two years ; and 
the mortality it occasioned had not been very great, because 
the confluence of strangers on the coast of Caracas was less 
considerable than at the Havannah or Vera Cruz. A few 
individuals, even creoles and mulattoes, were sometimes 
carried off suddenly by certain irregular remittent fevers ; 
which, from being complicated with bilious appearances, 
haemorrhages, and other symptoms equally alarming, ap- 
peared to have some analogy with the yellow fever. . The 
victims of these maladies were generally men employed in the 
hard labour of cutting wood in the forests, tor instance, in 
the neighbourhood of the little port of Carupano, or the gulf 
of Santa Fe, west of Cumana. Their death often alarmed the 
unacclimated Europeans, in towns usually regarded as pecu- 
liarly healthy ; but the seeds of the sporadic malady were 
propagated no farther. On the coast of Terra Firma, the 
real typhus of America, which is known by the names vomito 
prieto (black vomit) and yellow fever, and which must be 
considered as a morbid affection mi generis, was known only 
at Porto Cabello, at Carthagena, and at Santa Martha, 
where Gastelbondo observed and described it in 1729. The 
Spaniards recently disembarked, and the inhabitants of the 
valley of Caracas, were not then afraid to reside at La 
Guayra. They complained only of the oppressive heat 
which prevailed during a. great part of the year. If they 
exposed themselves to the immediate action of the sun, they 
dreaded at most only those attacks of inflammation of the 
skin or eyes, which are felt everywhere in the torrid zone, 
and are often accompanied by a febrile affection and con- 
gestion in the head. Many 'individuals preferred the ar- 
dent but uniform climate of La Guayra to the cool but 
extremely variable climate of Caracas ; and scarcely any 
mention was made of the insalubrity of the former port. 
Since the year 1797 everything has changed. Commerce 
being thrown open to other vessels besides those of the 
mother country, seamen born in colder parts of Europe 
than Spain, and’ consequently more susceptible to the climate 
of the torrid zone, began to frequent La Guayra. The 
yellow fever broke out. North Americans, seized with the 
typhus, were received in the Spanish hospitals ; and it was 
