SICKNESS. 
91 
imagine that it must also be a remarkably 
healthy place, but it is, in fact, lamentably the 
reverse. On arriving at the town, we were 
obliged to call at no less than four different ta¬ 
verns, before we could procure accommoda¬ 
tions, the people at the first places we stopped 
at being so severely afflicted with the ague, 
that they could not receive us ; and on enquir¬ 
ing, it appeared that there was not a single 
house in the whole town but where one or 
more of the inhabitants were labouring under 
this perplexing disorder ; in some of the houses 
entire families were laid up, and at the fort on 
the opposite side of the river, the whole of the 
new garrison, except a corporal and nine men, 
was disqualified for doing duty. Each indi¬ 
vidual of our party could not but entertain very 
serious apprehensions for his own health, on 
arriving at a place where sickness was so ge¬ 
neral, but we are assured that the danger of 
catching the disorder was now over ; that all 
those who were ill at present, had been con¬ 
fined for many weeks before; and that for a 
fortnight past not a single person had been at¬ 
tacked, who had not been ill in the preceding 
part of the season. As a precaution, however, 
each one of the party took fasting, in the morn¬ 
ing, a glass of brandy, in which was infused a 
teaspoonful of Peruvian bark. This mixture 
