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244 these gales come on is equal to their violence. A little ripple from the North first indicates their approach, and if boats are out, or on shore, not an instant should then be lost in placing them in security. Five minutes afterwards I have seen the strength of a whole boat's crew exerted in vain, in order to keep the head of the boat towards the sea: they sometimes succeeded in carrying it through the shoal water off Mocambo Point, but, as soon as they trusted to their oars, they were driven back again, and compelled to abandon the attempt. The only consolation in these cases is the reflection that, as long as the Norte lasts, there is no danger in the detention on shore. It purifies the atmosphere, and seems to destroy for the time the seeds of that terrible disorder, the "Vomito," which at other seasons proves so fatal to foreigners, upon the whole Eastern Coast of New Spain. This fever, which is very similar to the worst species of the Yellow Fever common throughout the West Indies, takes its name from one of its symptoms, the black vomit, (vomito prieto,) by which dissolution is usually preceded. At Veracruz its cause has been sought in the local peculiarities of the situation, and there is little doubt that the exhalations from the marshes which surround the town, must have a tendency to increase the virulence of the disorder. But throughout the Gulph of Mexico, the Vomito has made its appearance wherever a number of Europeans have been assembled for the purposes of trade. At