21 
tute of springs or rivulets, and produce nothing but a 
few trees, and the aloe, called tetech, which latter, 
however, is very plentiful. These tracks are rarely to 
be met with, and chiefly near the sea-coast. The soil 
on some of the mountains is shallow, and saturated with 
mineral waters, which render it steril; but the valleys at 
the foot of the mountains generally consist of a deep 
soil, extremely rich and fertile. Many parts of the 
country are marshy, the inhabitants having not yet 
learned the art of draining them: these spots produce in 
abundance a kind of wild cane, bamboos, and reeds. 
The air is salubrious, except in the rainy season. 
Frost and snow are unknown there; and the heat 
during the summer, which lasts about three months, is 
so tempered by the sea breezes, which regularly 
spring up about nine o’clock in the morning, and 
continue till six or seven in the evening, that it is 
seldom inconvenient; and the rest of the year is a 
continual spring-time, in which the natives do not 
cease sowing and planting. The bad or rainy season 
comprehends the months of January and February, 
at which time the inhabitants of the sea-coasts retire 
to the interior and mountainous parts of the country, 
in order to avoid the fevers which prevail, owing to 
the humidity of the air. # 
* All Europeans are attacked, with more or less violence, 
by these fevers, which may be ascribed to the marshy and 
wooded nature of the country, an entire alteration of food, or 
unadaptation of the climate to the European constitution; but 
most probably all these causes unite. 
