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: for the town of Arica was
similarly circumstanced, and its healthiness was much improved by
the drainage of some little pools. 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. Jago, 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.
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