Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/267

 quite low enough to answer all the purposes of a sanitarium; the clouds that brood on the higher spots rarely fall so low, he rains are much lighter, and the winter most enjoyable. I will grant that a month previous to the rains and a month thereafter, the higher stations have the advantage, but as a residence throughout the year, the lower ones are decidedly preferable.

But let not the invalid rush to the hills unprepared for fatigue or inconvenience. A long dawk journey is not the only difficulty to be encountered:for when he has got to his destination, he will find many others he did not calculate upon. Even in a good hotel he will not be much at his ease: the want of baggage, of servants, of little domestic comforts, so essential to a man in delicate health, he will at first greatly miss; and if he take a house, he will, even though furnished, have many things to procure. Let him be prepared to meet these with patience and resolution. It is a general, and I think a well-founded opinion, that all hill stations are better adapted for preserving good health, than for restoring it when lost. When organic disease has occurred, such as diarrhœa, or dysentery, or hepatatis, or consumption, they are decidedly objectionable. Diarrhœa is epidemic in the hot weather, and few people visiting them even when in good health