bliged to pass a
fortnight or more in the lazaretto before being permitted to land in the
capital, while others, rather than submit to the trying discipline of
quarantine, have given up their purpose of doing so.

Untraveled readers can hardly realize the discomforts and annoyances
caused by quarantine laws, against the necessity of which no intelligent
person will attempt to argue. Late experience upon our own coast,
especially in New York harbor, proves not only their importance, but
also their efficacy, though they sometimes, in individual cases, operate
with seemingly unnecessary hardship. Sir Walter Scott, in describing his
detention at the lazaretto in Malta, tells us of an accident which
occurred, illustrating the rigid enforcement of quarantine rules. It
seems that a foremast hand on board the ship which had brought him
hither fell from the yardarm into the sea. The fellow struggled
manfully, being a good swimmer. Several native boats, which were near at
hand, promptly steered in another direction, but an English boat's crew,
belonging to a ship in the harbor, pulled as swiftly as possible towards
the struggling seaman and rescued him from the water. For this act of
humanity, the boat's crew was ordered into quarantine for a week. By
saving the life of the sailor who had fallen from the ship which was in
quarantine, they had run the risk of contamination!

On one occasion, while in South America, it was the author's misfortune
to be at Rio Janeiro when the yellow fever was raging there. He was
bound southward to Montevideo, but no ship going thither would receive
passengers, lest the vessel should be quarantined. Passage was therefore
taken northward to Bahia, Brazil, which was not a prohibited port,
though yellow fever was found to exist there, also. Thence the Pacific
Mail Steamship took us south again to the mouth of the Plate
River,--_Rio de la Plata_,--passing, but not entering, the harbor of
Rio. Thus one was compelled to travel by sea over two thousand miles
for no possible purpose save to avoid being quarantined at Montevideo.

The cholera swept away several thousands of the Maltese in 1837, again
in 1853, and once more so late as 1887. It will be observed that there
exists a serious drawback in the location of the group. It is so
situated, midway between the East and the West, as to be the victim of
all such epidemics as are liable to be conveyed through the ordinary
channels of commerce.

When the