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formed part of our stock, seemed to partake in the joy of their more rational companions. The hogs frisked about, the cow lowed, and all appeared sensible (the sailors said, by smelling) that we were now approaching land. Our delight, however, was a little damped by the arrival of the pilot, who, on coming on board, informed us, that the yellow fever raged in New York, and that the city had in consequence been deserted by nearly all its inhabitants. At this intelligence some of our passengers, who were coming to join their wives and children, were thrown into the greatest consternation; but, for my part, I was so rejoiced at arriving at the end of my voyage, that I thought of nothing but getting ashore.

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The entrance to the bay of New York is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. On each side of the Narrows, where the steep and almost perpendicular cliffs of Staten Island are only two miles distant from the shore of Long Island, the forts and fortifications that defend this celebrated harbour seem to frown upon the vessels that enter. We passed close to the formidable batteries of Fort La Fayette, which advances into the water, with four tiers of guns, one of which tiers is occupied by a large kind of carronades, called Columbians, each throwing a hundred pound shot.

After passing the Narrows, we entered the Bay of New York, which, expanding immediately, is about nine miles in width in the broadest part.

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On each side, the shore, though wooded down to the water's edge, is thickly studded with farms, villages, and country seats. At the upper end are seen the spires of the city; and in the distance, the bold precipitous banks of the Hudson. The day was beautiful, the sky without a cloud, and the vast sheet of water was covered with inward and outward bound vessels, the white sails of which were illuminated by the sun-beams.

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We anchored just below the battery, at the point of the island on which New York is built, and getting into a boat rowed round to Greenwich, which, though once a separate town, now forms part of the city. Looking up the streets that run 'down to the water, I perceived they were all barricaded at the upper ends, and strewed with lime. The houses of course were all shut up and deserted; and out of a population of 120,000 inhabitants, not more than 7 or 8,000 remained in the city; and those only in the higher and more healthy parts.

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I do not know a more sombre spectacle than a large deserted city. We are so accustomed to associate the idea of a town with that of an active and noisy multitude, that to see a number of houses quite deserted and hushed in perfect silence, impresses the mind with the deepest melancholy. Nothing endued with life was to be seen in any of the streets or neighbouring quays, except here and theresa cat; for these animals, in the hurry and

confusion of moving from the town, had been left behind in considerable numbers, and formed at that time the only inhabitants of a great part of the city.

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There is a considerable variety of opinion among the citizens with regard to the origin of this fever. Those who are anxious about the reputation of the town, pretend that the disease was imported; but by far the greater number maintain it was indigenous. This is also the opinion of most of the medical men to whom I have spoken on the subject, as well in other parts of the United States as at New York itself. They consider the question of the non-contagion of the Yellow Fever as completely decided, in spite of the report which was made by the French physicians, sent to Barcelona, and which indeed, as well as their visit, appears now to have been only a prelude to the Cordon Sanitaire. It would not of course have been right, in the dutiful and loyal subjects of Louis, to have affirmed that the Cordon, as an army of observation against the yellow fever, was entirely useless; and that the malady, so far from crossing the Pyrenees to attack the French, would not even venture out of the infected district. An eminent medical man told me, that he should have no fear whatever of sleeping in the same bed with a person ill of the fever, provided he had been removed to a healthy place; but that he should not at all like even to walk through a part

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of the town where the sickness prevailed. This opinion was so well established, that the friends of any person who was taken ill, and upon the first appearance of the disease, almost immediately removed either to Staten Island or up the country, had no more fear of sitting up with him than if he had been merely afflicted with a tooth-ache. Indeed not one of those employed to attend upon the sick, after they had been removed, were attacked by the fever. Even Monsieur Hyde de Neuville, a furious ultra (who had been French Minister in America for a number of years), stated in the Chamber of Deputies, that he was happy to add his own avowed experience to the now prevalent opinion of the non-contagion of this fever.*

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For my own part, I wonder that the inhabitants are so seldom visited by this scourge. The town is very large, and is built on the flat point of the island, on a great deal of what was low marshy ground. There is no such thing in the whole place as a sink or common sewer. All the filth and soil is collected in pits, of which there is one in every house, and the very opening of which, when full, is enough to breed the plague itself.Moreover, their contents, instead of being carried

* Nevertheless, since my return to England, I have seen a paper by Sir G. Blane, from which it appears that the yellow fever was carried from the coast of Africa to the island of Ascension; proving, apparently, that under certain circumstances it is contagious.

to some distance from the town, are conveyed to the nearest slip, or quay, and thrown into the water. As these slips, protruding from the quays, are very numerous, and are built of logs, the quantity of filth that is retained, and which the tide does not wash away, causes, in hot weather, a most abominable stench.

The streets in the lower part of the town are notoriously filthy, and the stranger is not a little surprised to meet the hogs walking about in them, for the purpose of devouring the vegetables and offal that are thrown into the gutter.

The corporation of New York, however, seem to have seriously turned their attention to the police of the city; and will no doubt dispossess the hogs of their accustomed walks, and oblige the inhabitants to keep the streets and slips in a cleaner state. But what may also contribute to produce unhealthiness, is the very foolish and absurd practice of burying the dead within the town. Some of the church-yards have become so full, that they are raised several feet above the level of the neighbouring streets. Indeed, the bodies in many places have been buried three deep.json

I found that the merchants and shopkeepers had all removed their offices and stores to Greenwich, where they had put up small wooden booths, exactly resembling those at an English fair.

My first care on arriving at this town, was

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