concerning earthquakes and volcanos?--why some springs were hot and
others cold?--why there were mountains in Chile, and not a hill in La
Plata? These bare questions at once satisfied and silenced the greater
number; some, however (like a few in England who are a century
behindhand), thought that all such inquiries were useless and impious;
and that it was quite sufficient that God had thus made the mountains.
An order had recently been issued that all stray dogs should be killed,
and we saw many lying dead on the road. A great number had lately gone
mad, and several men had been bitten and had died in consequence. On
several occasions hydrophobia has prevailed in this valley. It is
remarkable thus to find so strange and dreadful a disease, appearing
time after time in the same isolated spot. It has been remarked that
certain villages in England are in like manner much more subject to
this visitation than others. Dr. Unanue states that hydrophobia was
first known in South America in 1803: this statement is corroborated by
Azara and Ulloa having never heard of it in their time. Dr. Unanue
says that it broke out in Central America, and slowly travelled
southward. It reached Arequipa in 1807; and it is said that some men
there, who had not been bitten, were affected, as were some negroes,
who had eaten a bullock which had died of hydrophobia. At Ica
forty-two people thus miserably perished. The disease came on between
twelve and ninety days after the bite; and in those cases where it did
come on, death ensued invariably within five days. After 1808, a long
interval ensued without any cases. On inquiry, I did not hear of
hydrophobia in Van Diemen's Land, or in Australia; and Burchell says,
that during the five years he was at the Cape of Good Hope, he never
heard of an instance of it. Webster asserts that at the Azores
hydrophobia has never occurred; and the same assertion has been made
with respect to Mauritius and St. Helena. [2] In so strange a disease
some information might possibly be gained by considering the
circumstances under which it originates in distant climates; for it is
improbable that a dog already bitten, should have been brought to these
distant countries.
At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito, and asked
permission to sleep there. He said he had been wandering about the
mountains for seventeen days, having lost his way. He started from
Guasco, and being accustomed to travelling in the Cordillera, did not
expect any difficulty in following the track to Copiapo; but he soon
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