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I heard many strange accounts of
the yellow fever. I believe Para was the second port in Brazil
attacked by it. The news of its ravages in Bahia, where the
epidemic first appeared, arrived some few days before the disease
broke out. The government took all the sanitary precautions that
could be thought of; amongst the rest was the singular one of
firing cannon at the street corners, to purify the air. Mr.
Norris, the American consul, told me the first cases of fever
occurred near the port and that it spread rapidly and regularly
from house to house, along the streets which run from the
waterside to the suburbs, taking about twenty-four hours to reach
the end. Some persons related that for several successive
evenings before the fever broke out the atmosphere was thick, and
that a body of murky vapour, accompanied by a strong stench,
travelled from street to street. This moving vapour was called
the "Mai da peste" ("the mother or spirit of the plague"); and it
was useless to attempt to reason them out of the belief that this
was the forerunner of the pestilence.


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