Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/189

Rh in which to pass through Vera Cruz, and the midsummer months the most dangerous. Although the fever commences in May, it is generally at its worst in August and September, as it requires a certain time for the germs of the disease to develop. The disease first attacks strangers in the country, especially those from a colder climate, where frost occurs; and it has been observed by Humboldt that among people from the table-lands of Mexico the mortality is relatively greater than among visitors coming from over the sea.

A stay in Vera Cruz even of a few hours is sufficient for one to contract the contagion, during the season of fever, and the greatest precautions must be taken by those who are compelled to run the gantlet in the summer months. We have had many lamentable examples of late years, one of the most to be deplored being that of General Ord, our brave army officer, whose business and family interests took him to Mexico, and who died in Havana, of fever contracted at Vera Cruz. I have purposely digressed from our line of march to repeat the warning to would-be visitors to Mexico, not to pass through Vera Cruz in the summer season.

Once a person has had the fever, he generally has immunity from further attack, and the old residents of Vera Cruz laugh at its approach, and pursue their avocations without seriously regarding it. This is why they cling so strongly to this pestilential seaport, since the transfer of its business to a new and more healthy locality has often been urged, and always by them strenuously resisted.

General Grant, President of the Mexican Southern Railroad, has encountered great opposition from them because he proposed having the Gulf terminus of his line at Anton Lizardo. a healthy locality, with a comparatively good harbor, some distance down the coast. His improvements are now going on at that place, and when they are finished, and railway connection is made with the table-land, Vera Cruz will be left to occupy the position it richly deserves, as a forsaken charnel-house of mouldering bones. Its roadstead is notoriously poor, affording no protection to the vessels coming there, although the famous