advance, and covered the roads with dead and dying; the ground of encampment, and line of march, presented the appearance of a field of battle, and of the track of an army retreating under every circumstance of discomfiture and distress. The exact amount of mortality during these few calamitous days could not, from the circumstances of confusion and general disorder, under which it took place, be ascertained with any degree of accuracy. From the Military returns however it appears, that in this fatal week, of 11,500 fighting men of all descriptions,* 764 fell victims to the disorder; and of the camp followers, it was conjectured, that about 8,000, or one-tenth of the whole, was cut off." 17.

On this narrative we may make a few remarks. The disproportion between the numbers of troops and of camp followers who fell, is very remarkable; of the latter one-tenth, of the former one-fifteenth. Yet this disproportion is trifling in comparison with what has since been observed. The camp followers, ill fed, ill provided for in every way, have invariably suffered more than the better circumstanced troops. This might be expected. In the next place, we doubt whether so much should be attributed to the change of quarters on the part of the grand army, as is usually done. The epidemic commenced on the 6th or thereabouts, and declined on the 22d or 23d, having raged for fifteen or sixteen days. Subsequent events have shewn that in India it never continued in vigour in a camp for a longer period than ten or fifteen days. Whether this be or be not the whole truth, we think that it ought at least to be taken into consideration, in reasoning on the event. We have frequently made this reflection on perusing similar relations. Mr. Jameson, we find, is struck with the same idea, which tends to give it additional weight.

We will not pursue the evolution of the epidemic throughout the province of Bengal, nor give a dry detail of names which would convey no information to ninety-nine readers out of the hundred, and of circumstances devoid of any general utility. We shall merely notice events which may be striking or singular in themselves.

Whilst the inhabitants of Hutta and Saugor and the dependencies of Nursingha and Puthooreea suffered very severely, "the troops serving in that quarter, and some of them living in the very centre of the pestilence at that time, scarcely appeared subject to its influence." In June it appeared at Kotah, where it is said to have cut off a hundred men a day, but having got into the high and mountainous track it gradually died away, and never reached the states of Oodeypoor and Ajmeer. To shew the great inequality of the disease in severity, we may mention what occurred to the troops under Major-General Marshall. During their march they fell in with the disease at Jubbulpore on the 9th of April, and suffered during the remainder of the month. Of 8,500 fighting men, only 125 were taken ill, and 49 died, or a fraction less than one in 173.

Nagpore and Mooltay were both severely visited, yet in the intermediate space of 70 miles the disease was not met with, and Baitool, a large town

"The number of fighting men in Camp is here a good deal overrated; for one Detachment left Camp before the commencement of the disorder; and another much larger as early as the 18th.-The two together amounted to nearly three thousand."

in the direct road from the river to Mooltay, was entirely exempt. At Nagpore, the Bengal Reports from the West are terminated. From Nagpore it passed to Jaulnah and to Bombay; from the latter Presidency a distinct Report has proceeded, and been already analyzed.

"The Nagpore Subsidiary Force under Colonel Adams, afforded the first striking instance of a large body of men coming into the pestilential medium, and from the previous enjoyment of perfect health, falling at once into a wretched state of sickliness. This Division had, during the early part of May, been occupied in besieging the important Fortress of Chanda; but, although it had undergone excessive fatigue, and met with a few casualties from constant exposure to the sun, it had nothing like marked disease, until, on the morning of its last march on the return to Nagpore, it encamped at Gaongong, a village situated nine miles South of the city. Here it had hardly learnt that the epidemic was raging in the vicinity, when it began itself to experience its unwelcome visits. As usual, its first assaults were most severe. Many of those attacked whilst loitering for water in the neighbouring rivulets, were brought in expiring; some dead. Of 70 cases admitted during that night and the succeeding day, about 20 died.-On the 31st the instances of attack were equally numerous; but in these, the exhaustion was not so sudden, and the subsequent symptoms were less severe. On the 1st of June, the Division moved from Nagpore towards the cantonments at Hoshungabad. The disease then gradually declined; and almost entirely disappeared on the 17th and 18th, after some seasonable falls of rain. The Madras Troops, composing part of the besieging force employed at Chandah, are reported to have suffered equally with their comrades from this side of India." 23.

We have hitherto accompanied the epidemic to the West and to the South. We have not individualized its successive evolutions, a dry and tedious process; we have merely directed attention to such as were remarkable. We shall do the same, as we follow the monster in his march, or rather his irruptions, on the North and East. The point from which we start is the junction of the Ganges and Jumna at Allahabad, where the disease established itself in the Spring of 1818, prevailing for several months with great malignancy, and sweeping off in the town and district nearly 10,000 persons. The troops stationed in the fort and city were not affected until the middle of July following, although holding daily and unrestrained intercourse with the towns' people. In the following passages we shall see that the disease, in India as in Europe, shewed itself most virulent and most intractable in filthy and crowded communities. We shall also see how frequently it passed from one point to another at a considerable distance from the first, but forbore to affect the intermediate towns or villages.

"On the Jumna, the epidemic spared Culpee, and almost every intermediate village between it and Etawah.-The latter place it reached late in May; and, after doing considerable mischief, it would appear to have thence at once stretched across the Doab to Futtigur, visiting very few places on its route. It appeared in the lines of Futtigur on the 10th of June; and thence was communicated to the town. There it shewed little virulence of symptoms; and wholly subsided on the commencement of the rains early in July. It is curious, that Muttra, situated considerably higher up the Jumna than Agra, should have had the disease in the beginning of June, whilst the latter place was not visited until the 1st of July. In Muttra, a filthy and crowded city, the disease was very virulent, and the mortality great. In Agra, a dry and airy town, the symptoms were mild and the deaths few. The Cantonments attached to Agra remained

nearly exempt; but those at Muttra being low and near the banks of the river, partook of the general unhealthiness of the town, and lost many men. In both places, the epidemic loitered for more than a month. It then, on the 11th of July, entered the town of Coel; which was alone affected in the Alligur district: the Jails, Cantonments, and the adjoining villages enjoying perfect immunity. We next find the disease on the 20th at Delhi. Here it remained nearly a month, and committed very considerable havoc among the condensed population of an extensive city.

Neither between Agra and Delhi, nor during its route from the latter place to Meerut, did the disorder halt in any of the intermediate towns and villages. Since, of these many were placed very low, and much exposed to masses of animal and vegetable putrefaction, and every other source of miasmata and contagion, their immunity from attack could hardly be ascribed with justice to peculiar healthiness of situation. The reason rather seems to have been that, in this quarter, the epidemic, whether from the pure and elastic air of the Northern Provinces being less favourable to its existence, than the thick damp climate of Bengal; or from its beginning to give way to that general law of Nature, which requires that diseases, like all other things, should have their decrements as well as their rise and increase; or from some other hidden agency altogether unsuspected, was now beginning to die away, and could only be kept alive by strongly exiting causes: such as large bodies of men crowded together in camps and cities. Hence, we find, that between Delhi and Meerut,-a distance of thirty miles, populous and studded with considerable towns and villages,—not a case of the disease occurred;* whilst the latter city, and the cantonments attached to it, suffered under it from the 28th of July to the 20th of August. Few were seized in the town, and fewer in the lines; and in both the sum of mortality fell considerably short of three hundred. So likewise, between Meerut and Saharunpoor, the epidemic kept dormant; whilst the latter city, which is very low and filthy, filled with ruined buildings, and intersected by foul chan nels with oozy banks, suffered considerably. The disease shewed itself in the town about the end of September; was in full force about the middle of October; and declined from that time until the last week of the month, when it wholly disappeared. It may be, however, that the virus proceeded not in a centrical line from Delhi to Saharunpore, but along the course of the Jumna; as Tannah, a large town, only sixteen miles from the river, and twenty South of Saharunpore, was attacked before the latter place." 28.

The epidemic can be traced no further North than Saharunpore, the high mountain ridges checking it, though the poverty and wretchedness of the inhabitants seemed to render them equally likely to take it, and to suffer severely from it when taken. How perplexing the rationale of the outbreak of the disease in detachments of military has ever been in India, we might readily prove. It seems clear enough that such detachments passing through places where the disease existed, were frequently affected shortly afterwards. This looks like the sequence of effect and cause, and probably it was so. But granting this, which we readily do, it is obvious that the influence of contagion is not demonstrated by such examples; on the contrary we think that the circumstance is rather adverse than favourable to the idea of such agency. It is passing strange that a body of troops marching round, or by, or even through a place where an infectious disease ex

"By a subsequent report it indeed appears, that the epidemic slightly visited the towns of Ghazeeabad and Mooradnuggur; but in them the cases were so few as hardly to affect the statement in the text." G 2

ists, should happen to come in contact with those who have it, or with those who can convey it. Suppose that a very contagious malady, an exanthema, for instance, measles, were prevailing in London, and that a body of king's troops were to pass through the metropolis on their way to put down a Reform insurrection in the North; should we probably find those troops become affected, should we look for their becoming so? We should not, and of many divisions so circumstanced we should certainly expect that the majority would escape. But if the prevailing disease were another sort of epidemic, an ague, for instance, our expectations would be widely different, and probably no body of men passing through the metropolis at such a time would fail to be attacked by it. This is merely an argument founded on probabilities, yet we think that it shews the impossibility of proving or even supporting the doctrine of contagion by such instances.

But this is not all. If the detachment affected by passing through a district in which cholera is raging, communicate the disease to another detachment previously healthy, that is, if the latter are attacked by cholera very shortly after coming into contact with the former, shall we not be forced to acknowledge the agency of contagion or infection on this occasion? This will not admit of a direct reply. As only a very few instances of this kind were adduced we deem them inconclusive-first, because the disease was so irregular in its progress, in its appearance, and its disappearance, that the occurrence might have been a mere coincidence; secondly, because the observation of the fact itself might have been incorrect. This is no excessive fastidiousness on our part; it is the mere application of the ordinary cautions in the admission of evidence to this particular case, the mere illustration of the precept, post hoc non ergo propter hoc.

If, indeed, such examples were numerous, common sense and rules of reasoning equally demand the abandonment of these scruples. If one thing follows another, in the majority of cases that admit of their sequence, we are bound to admit them as cause and effect, in the absence of positive proof, or very satisfactory arguments to the contrary. It is equally unphilosophic to reject a general rule because it has exceptions, and to erect an exception into a general rule. In point of fact, the cases of communication of cholera from one detachment to another are neither numerous nor satisfactorily authenticated. The following, for instance, may be considered as rather a favourable sample of the whole; yet in this we shall find that, previously to the arrival of the body which is accused of bringing the cholera, some cases had occurred amongst those who are said to have received it. It must be strangely constituted minds, indeed, that can feed on such a dish as this.

"On the 23d of July, a Detachment, consisting of a troop of the Horse Artillery Brigade, the Rocket troop, and 5 Companies of the 1st Battalion 25th Native Infantry, marched from Meerut to join the force collecting at Hansi under Brigadier Arnold, for service in the Bickaneer and Bhatty countries. They remained perfectly healthy on their march to the Jumna, and during several subsequent days, in which they were encamped on its East bank. On the 29th they crossed the River, passed through Delhi (the disease being then at its height in the town) and encamped outside of its walls, about a mile to the West. On the 30th, they continued their March in a North-westerly direction; and on the morning of the 31st, they were attacked by the Epidemic.—It continued unabated amongst them, until the 6th; when they joined the general camp at Hansi. Although one or two cases had occurred in this Force a day or two pre

viously to the arrival of the Meerut Detachment, it was the unanimous belief of the Medical Staff serving with it, that from the latter, it got the disease in its epidemical form. What gives a colour of probability to this conjecture is, that the disorder was not met with in any of the villages lying in the immediate line of the route of the Detachment from Delhi to Hansi; and certainly did not appear in the latter town until some time after its prevalence in Camp, and then but very slightly.-On the other hand, it was generally rumoured that, several intermediate places between Delhi and Hansi, and betweeen Delhi and Kurnaul, particularly Paniput, had been affected previously to Hansi being brought within the pestilential influence.* It continued with the troops until the 12th of August; and accompanied them in their march in a W. N. W. direction to Futtihabad, Rhauneea and Sirseea, and in their retrogade movement on Hissar. Of the whole Force, only about 250 men were attacked. The symptoms were coinparatively mild; and the deaths few. The Epidemic did not reach Loodeehana; and appears in this quarter to have been limited by the river Sutledge.

From Delhi or Aligurh, the disease would seem to have spread in a South West direction to the principality of Jeypore; the capital of which it reached in the latter end of August. Here it was neither malignant nor general: its attacks being almost confined to the most wretched class of the inhabitants, and the whole mortality throughout the circumjacent country scarcely exceeding a thousand men.—On the 12th September it began to abate in the city; and on the 14th it entered the camp of a detached Force commanded by Major Agnew, at Titirya, twenty-five miles South West of Jeypore; and there raged with very considerable virulence till the 28th, when it gradually abated. Of 96 Europeans, and 4100 Natives composing the fighting part of this Force, the admissions were 292, of whom 122 died. The mortality amongst the camp followers could not rightly be ascertained. The Epidemic was no more heard of in this direction : neither the town, nor the valley of Ajmeer being affected; although another large division of the Rajpootana Force was encamped in the latter, on similar ground, and under circumstances apparently in no wise differing from those of their less fortunate comrades at Titirya." 31.

In the middle provinces of Bengal, it maintained its character for eccentricity, decimating one place, totally omitting another, merely playing with a third. It is curious that the troops and camp followers in personal attendance upon the Marquess of Hastings, on his return from the upper provinces, again fell in with the epidemic on the 20th or 21st of April; but now its attacks were nearly restricted to such persons as had not been with the centre division of the army in the preceding Autumn.

"In the foregoing pages, the singular fact of the virus shewing an unwillingness to ascend high and mountainous tracts of Country, has been noticed. Thus it wholly avoided Kumaoon, the Hilly Districts North of Hurdwar, and the elevated stony belt which girds in the Rajpootana States to the North West.-But this rule was not without exception; for, in June, it passed the lofty range of mountains guarding Napaul to the East, and visited Khatmandoo, Patun, and Bhatgoon in the subjacent valley; and, in October following, it got from Sylhet to the independent countries of Kashar and Munnipore, on the eastern borders of Bengal. But, even here, it might be seen that high lands were not congenial to it; for it had been raging with very great violence in the adjoining District of Sylhet, before it was enabled to overcome the obstacles opposed to its progress

* Had a detachment of soldiers, with some cases of cholera, arrived in Haddington from Newcastle, a few days before the disease broke out in the former, would we ever have heard the last of such a proof of contagion ?