ON CORAL REEFS AS A CAUSE OF FEVER. 430 
Captain Knudson thus alludes to this locality. “The inha¬ 
bitants of the island of Timor are likewise subject to this 
malady (fever) but in a much more severe degree, as it seldom 
completely leaves a person once attacked. It is in Dilli par¬ 
ticularly where I have seen tbs'most sufferers. This place is 
completely lined with coral reefs, of which these forming the 
harbour stand dry at low tide. The water is likewise very 
bad, any thing like good water must be brought from the 
mountains on horse-back. Patients under Dilli fever sutfer most 
dreadful headaches, and when the fit is on them they are 
delirious, the eyes are also affected and a long time elapses 
before they recover.” 
Let the reader examine the chart of Dilli, and from it a 
distinct idea will be formed of the nature of the port, town, 
and adjacent country. If such a chart was presented me, 
and my opinion asked regarding the climate of the locality 
it represents, I would say nothing ought to prove more clearly 
the truth of my theory, for from the disposition of the coral 
reefs it must be a most unhealthy spot. Fatal experience has 
proved it is so, few visit that port and leave itscathless, and 
to be there appointed by the Government to which it belongs, 
is considered, and has been since Captain Cook’s time, as only 
a little better than the penalty of imprisonment. Mr A. A. 
visited Dilli, and contracted there the virulent fever of the 
place which for a very long time hung about him, nor did he 
thoroughly as he thought get rid of it till he tried the climate 
of New Zealand. Last October on his return to Singapore 
while in excellent health, he touched at Dilli, remained there 
for four days and was carried on board of his vessel more dead 
than alive from the fever, having his spleen so enlarged as nearly 
to extend over the whole abdominal cavity. He says that no 
one lives in the town but natives, all living in the country who 
can. The Governor lives about 3 miles inland on a hill and 
there it is healthy ; betwixt that and the sea as Mr Earl de¬ 
scribes, there is a plain, at least comparatively so, having the 
surface composed of gentle elevations and depressions of a 
very stony nature. During the wet season these depressions 
are tilled with water, but during the rest of the year tney are 
dry. From all accounts the fever at Dilli is prevalent at all 
times of the year, whether it is wet or dry, whether the wind 
blow off the land or the sea. But when the wind is from the East 
the fever is said to be more prevalent, and the cause is cor¬ 
rectly conjectured by Mr Earl to be from the stagnation of 
the atmosphere owing to the proximity of high hills. That 
this malignant fever is not indebted to the land for its cause 
I would infer, from the following facts. First that the fever 
