ON CORAL REEFS AS A CAUSE OF FEVER, 433 
town, close to which is deep water, and the place is furnished 
with good water.” 
While the town is not so subject to fever as many other 
settlements, yet vessels anchoring in the bay are. Captain 
Brown of the “ Sir Robert Sale” informs me that this is the 
most feverish locality that lie has met with, as after anchoring 
there for some time, some years ago in another vessel, nearly 
all his crew were attacked with intermittent fever ol which 
some died. He says in the Bay there is a coral island which 
dries for f of a mile all around at low water, and exposes the 
dead and living coral. During the S. E. monsoon the wind 
blows off the land and ships can remain in the harbour, but in 
the westerly monsoon the wind blowing from the sea over 
the island and shipping, obliges vessels to anchor in the Samow 
Straits. Here is the first instance, of which we shall see se¬ 
veral as at Padang in Sumatra &c., of the town being more 
healthy than the harbour, a most convincing proof that another 
than a terrestrial cause is exerting its influence. 
Arm Islands. 
The Arru islands are the next group referred to in my 
notes. They, according to Mr Earl “ extend from North to 
South about 100 miles, the land is only a few feet higher than 
the level of the sea except in spots where patches of lima 
stone rock raise it to the height of about 20 feet, the inland parts 
of most of the islands consist of fresh water swamps, and the 
jungle is so'thick that it is seldom penetrated by the natives .” 
Captain Wolfe of the ‘‘Velocipede” while trading amongst 
the islands was attacked with the usual fever of coral localities, 
a low remittent, which hung about him for months, and it 
was not until he had been under treatment in Singapore that 
he got free of it. He states that coral exposed at low water 
is to be found every where, and he has no doubt in his own 
mind, that the malaria which attacked him and produced his 
fever could not be attributed to the swamps, as the jungle 
prevented his feeling their effects or seeing them. 
Port Essington. 
The next locality I shall examine in this Chapter is Port 
Essington, a settlement that was considered at one time emi- 
mently healthy, but after experience has proved to be the 
contrary. , . 
In Earl’s “Tropical Australia” we find this description of 
the locality where Port Essington is situated: “ for while the 
climate of the Cobourg Peninsula generally may be P ro “ 
nounced as one of the finest that can be found within the tro¬ 
pics, there are certain spots which are so unhealthy, that even 
