Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/251

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IN INDIA.
231

continued state of circulation; agitation is not enough, and no one can taste water that has stood in a glass for a week unmoved and unchanged, especially in a hot climate without being convinced of the truth of the theory. Hence also the reason why the months of August,September, and October are so unhealthy. In these months the periodical floods are subsiding; the country is covered with a stratum of slime, and mud, and decaying vegetation: the inhabitants of many such districts abandon their houses at that time,nor venture to go back till the unhealthy season is over. The Tarai along the foot of the Himmalayan mountains; the Delta at the mouth of the Indus; the Sunderbunds of the Ganges, are in a great measure deserted at this season, few remaining exposed that can effect their escape. Many parts of the interior are, during these months, insulated by cordons of jungle, and no one who values his life would willingly pass through them.

13. RICE FIELDS.—The same laws that operate in rendering marshes miasmatic, also act, though perhaps in a less degree, in the rice fields of India. Towards the end of the rains and while the fields are still flowing with water, the ears are cropped and the straw is allowed to remain to ferment and form malaria. This is not a visionary idea, for so strong is this belief, that in many parts of the continent of Europe, far less favourable for