throughout
the whole tract, and in no place more so than the bare sandy beach near
the high-water mark_. The coloured people alone ever venture to inhabit
it; and when they see strangers tarrying on the shore after nightfall,
they never fail to warn them of their danger. The same remark holds good
in regard to the greater part of the leeward coasts of Martinique, _and
the leeward alluvial bases and recesses[24] of hills, in whatever port
of the torrid zone they may be placed_, with the exception, probably of
the immediate sites of towns, where the pavements prevent the rain-water
being absorbed into the soil, and hold it up to speedy evaporation."
Now, conceive a populous crowded town placed in this situation, and you
have exactly what Gibraltar and the other towns of Spain and North
America, liable to yellow fever, must become in such seasons as I have
above described, only, that as they grow more populous and crowded, the
danger must be greater, and its visitations more frequent, unless the
internal health police be made to keep pace in improvement, with the
increasing population.

[Footnote 24: The leeward niches and recesses of hills, however dry and
rocky, become in these seasons of drought, absolute dens of malaria,
this will be found proven in my reports made especially of the islands
of Dominique and Trinidad, which may be seen at the Army Medical Board
Office.]

Now in the name of injured commerce--of the deluded people of
England--of medical science--of truth and humanity--what occasion can
their be to institute an expensive quarantine against such a state of
things as this, which can only be mitigated by domestic health police;
or why conjure up the unreal phantom of an imported plague, to delude
the unhappy sufferers, as much in regard to the true nature of the
disease, as to the measures best calculated for their own preservation;
when it must be evident that the pestilence has sprung from amidst
themselves, and that had it been an external contagion in any degree,
the ordinary quarantine, as in case of the plague, would certainly have
kept it off; but the question of the contagion of yellow fever, so
important to commerce and humanity; and which, like the Cholera, has
more than once been used to alarm the coasts of England, demands yet
further investigation.

For nearly 40 years have the medical departments of our army and navy
been furnished with evidence, from beyond the Atlantic, that this
disease