OCR Text |
Show 446 PERU. July, 1835. this place, as I understand it is a good type of the greater part of the coast of Peru. JuLY 19TH.-We anchored in the bay of Callao, the seaport of Lima, the capital of Peru. We staid. here six weeks, but from the troubled state of public affaus, I saw very little of the country. During our whole visit the climate was far from being so delightful as it is generally represented. A dull heavy bank of clouds constantly hung over the. land, so that during the first sixteen days I had only one VIew of the Cordillera behind I,ima. These mountains, seen in stages, one above the other, through openings in the clouds, had a very grand appearance. It has almost become a proverb that rain never falls in the lower part of Peru. Yet this 'can hardly be considered correct; for during almost every day of our visit there was a thick drizzling mist, which was sufficient to make the streets muddy and one's clothes damp : this the people are pleased to call Peruvian dew. That much rain does not fall is very certain, for the houses are covered only with flat roofs made ·Of hardeneu mud; and on the mole, ship-loads of wheat were piled up, and are thus left for weeks together without any shelter. I cannot say I liked the very little I saw of Peru : in summer, however, it is said that the climate is much pleasanter. In all seasons, both inhabitants and foreigners suffer from severe attacks of ague. This disease is common on the whole coast of Peru, but is unknown in the interior. The attacks of illness which arise from miasma never fail to appear most mysterious. So difficult is it to judge from .the aspect of a country, whether or not it is healthy, that If a person had been told to choose within the tropics a situation appearing favourable for health, very probably he would have named this coast. The plain round the outskirts of Callao is sparingly covered with a coarse grass, and in some parts there are a few stagnant, though very small, pools of water. The miasma, in all probability, arises from these: July, 1835. LIMA. 447 for the town of Arica was similarly circumstanced, and its healthiness was much improved by the drainage of the water. The miasma is not always produced by a luxuriant vegetation with an ardent climate; for many parts of Brazil, even where there are marshes and a rank vegetation, are much more healthy than this sterile coast of Peru. The densest forests in a temperate climate, as in Chiloe, do not seem in the slightest degree to affect the healthy condition of the atmosphere. The island of St. J ago, at the Cape de Verds, offers another strongly-marked instance of a country which any one would have expected to find most healthy, being very much the contrary. I have described the bare and open plains as supporting, during a few weeks after the rainy season, a thin vegetation, which directly withers away and dries up : at that period the air appears to become poisonous; both natives and foreigners often becoming affected with violent fevers. On the other band, the Galapagos Archipelago, in the Pacific, with a similar soil, and periodically subject to the same process of veo-etation, • 0 IS perfectly healthy. Humboldt has observed, that, "under the torrid zone, the smallest marshes are the most dangerous, being surrounded, as at Vera Cruz and Carthagena, with an arid and sandy soil, which raises the temperature of the ambient air."* I must observe, however, that on the coast of Peru the temperature is not hot to any excessive degree; and perhaps in consequence, the intermittent fevers are not of the most malignant order. In all unhealthy countries the greatest risk is run by sleeping on shore. Is this owing to the state of the body during sleep, or to a greater abundance of miasma at such times ? It appears certain that those who stay on board a vessel, though anchored at only a short distance from the coast, generally suffer less than those actually on shore. On * Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, vol. iv., p. 199. |