Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/247

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IN INDIA.
227

lential island during one monsoon, when the wind is from the sea, but if the monsoon change, and blow from the interior, sickness invariably follows. Miasma loses its property of producing fever in its progress on the wind, as if it became too volatile to have effect. Localities within one mile of a marsh may be feverish, whereas others five miles distant may be healthy. People born and bred in a malarial country become inured to it, and enjoy comparatively good health, where new comers would suffer. The Garrows, one of the hill tribes, on the frontier of Assam, are the most powerful, athletic race I have seen in India, yet they inhabit a country, into the interior of which no European could penetrate without the certainty of a most dangerous fever. In some parts of South America, a slave escapes from bondage, and finds a safe asylum in some well-known deadly jungle, knowing that his master would follow him thither at the risk of his life. Landholders frequently take advantage of their being seasoned to marshy situations, renting their farms at a very low rate, when a succession of casualties to new coiners has prevented people in general from having anything to do with such supposed unlucky spots.

In most cantonments in India, there are certain marked houses,known from their unhealthiness, and waste; or only occupied for a month or two