The Doctor having heard very doleful accounts of the settlement, and being called instantly, on his arrival, to visit a person dangerously ill, and having observed the woeful countenances of the settlers, he became convinced of the truth of the sad relations he had previously been made acquainted with, respecting the unhealthiness of the climate.
He was quite convinced that affairs were even worse than they had been represented, as he saw "visceral disease" strongly depicted on every countenance; and, under these impressions, he made a corresponding report to head-quarters very shortly after his arrival.
However, being gifted with sound sense, and much discrimination, it was not long before experience taught him that he had too hastily (and without sufficient reason) coincided in the generally-received opinion regarding the climate, which he was not ashamed publicly to avow.
He observes:—
"My opinion of this climate has undergone a great change, and it is now different from what I was induced to form from the received intelligence of last year. There is no 'endemic' disease here. The climate of this place surpasses every other as far as I know, which are equally as near the equator; and were it not for the great height of atmospheric temperature, I should consider this climate one of the best in the world."
In another report, he says:—
"This climate has been represented as unfavourable to European constitutions. I am authorized to declare, after a residence of fifteen months, that it is by no means so bad as was imagined. The prevalence of sickness which took place after the formation of the settle-
