Climate-
Part I.
3 1 0 TEE CONGO.
started when the humid surface of the cooler feels
the effect of the heat. Water thus exposed becomes
agreeably cool, hut the physical system of a man by
the same process becomes deranged; the perspiration
is stopped, the pores are closed, and the body feels
disagreeably chilly. I f the woollen garments have
become wetted by perspiration, rain, dew, or some
accident in the water, the process of deranging the
system is much more rapid. Exposure to the sun
causes the moisture on the garments to evaporate, and
at the same time conducts the normal heat from the
body, leaving it a prey to disease. You may now see
the reason why clerks, faetory-men, and traders, who _
rarely take exercise in the hot sunshine, can show a
better health list than Yivi officers, who have been
exposed during all hours to the sun in a hilly position,
the descent and ascent of which provoked unusual
perspiration, and subjected them to continual and extraordinary
effects of the organic functions.
New another prime cause, which is also remediable,
of fevers all along the Congo canon, is that 90 per
cent, of the winds, as has been discovered by Dr.
Danckelman, blow from seaward up river, passing over
the miasmatic isles, swamps, and black mud deposits
between Boma and Banana, and tainting the air of all
the more healthy uplands that lie directly in the track
of the pest. Residences placed to leeward of this
draught, and openly exposed to it without some harrier
or shelter, are liable to be visited by the disease
which it engenders. The best protection against it
ADVANTAGE OF TREE PLANTING. 311
is the planting of trees a little distance in front to <
serve as a screen, and to attract the miasma to them by
the foliage; even a hedge is supposed by Sir Thomas
Watson to he better than nothing. Sir Thomas also
advises cultivation of the soil in front, and if possible
around, the residence.
Prevention, it is said, is better than cure; and I
profess to be able, not perhaps to teach you how to
prevent all, but at least to reduce many, of these
tedious illnesses to which the carelessness and ignorance
of the white man in Africa makes him so liable.
The climate being so new and novel to you, as yours
is to the pure African, this ‘ignorance is pardonable;
but now that your reasoning powers are properly
directed, the longer you live in the tropics the better
you will be able to appreciate the grand maxim of
Shakespeare, “ To a wise man all places on this earth
are ports and happy havens.”
But those who seek to commit deliberate suicide and
wanton self-destruction through the' insane practice
of hob-nobbing with every vinous friend they meet, I
cannot pity. Nay, I solemnly warn them that to drink
any wine, liquor, or other intoxicating beverage, in
a tropical country during the day, except when administered
under the direction of medical authority,
is the height of a folly that is dangerous to sound
health, and consequently to all bodily enjoyment.