THE TERROR OF TROPICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 27, 29 July 1871, Page 4

THE TERROR OF TROPICS.

THE YELLOW FEVER STILL RAGING

FRIGHTFULLY IN BUENOS AYRES. [From the New York Times, May 21st.] A gentleman recently arrived in Baltimore from Montevideo, who left the City of Buneos Ayres on the 10th of April, contains the deplorable picture of death in the stricken city, published in the “ Times” a few days ago. He says that no one can form the slightest conception of the misery and suffering endured by all, both high and low, within the fated limits of the once lovely South American capital. The city, he said, was absolutely deserted, only, perhaps, one fifth of the population remained inside; business was completely prostrated, scarcely twenty merchants met on ’Change. Every one who could flee had fled, or was about fleeing. Said he, never was a people visited with such a frightful calamity. Just before he left Buenos Ayres, on the Bth April, the deaths exceeded 600 per day. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DIED AND FIFTEEN THOUSAND SICK. He estimated that at least twenty-five thousand had died of the loathsome disease already, and there were fully fifteen thousand sick, the most of whom would doubtless never recover. The epidemic was increasing rapidly, and almost to a man the native physicians had become terror-stricken and fled, leaving their suffering patients to the merciful care of the foreign doctors, whose ranks were being swiftly depleted by the dreadful malady. Mr Richard M‘Sherry, of Baltimore, Md., the junior partner of the firm of Messrs Samuel B. Hale & Co., writes about the same time in regard to the death of Mr Edward E. Spring, the son of Hon S. E. Spring. He says the young gentleman won the respect and admiration of all who knew him by his spirit and self-sacrificing behaviour, as manifested in the heroic courage and fortitude with which he devoted himself to the care of the feverstricken. THE CITY A VAST CEMETERY. Mr M'Sherry also states that the fever was increasing daily, and there was every prospect of its leaving the City of Buneos Ayres nothing less than one vast cemetry. In one instance, he says there were eleven persons in a family down with the malady, and father, mother, brother, and sister, followed each other to the grave in rapid succession. The last of the family, a lovely daughter, who had for days struggled nobly against the terrible fatigue which she was called upon to endure, in not only nursing, but burying her dear father, mother, brother, and sister, was finally herselfstricken down and died a wretched death, amid all the horrors of the black vomit in its most hideous form, alone and unattended, and it is said that days elapsed before her decomposed remains were discovered and interred. The first death among the Americans in Buenos Ayres was that of Mr John H. Bean, of Brownfield, Me. Late dates, April 12 th, from Buenos Ayres, by Brazilan steamer to Lisbon and telegraphed here, as already published, reports the deaths at 700 daily, which

show the disease to have increased at the rate of fifty per diem since the 10th. THE EPIDEMIC INCREASES IN MALIGNITY.

Private advices from Buenos Ayres, by the steam-sliip North America, just arrived at this port from Rio de Janeiro, dated April 14th, and which have been anticipated by the Cuba despatch from Lisbon, present, if anything, a more frightful picture of the ravages of the pestilential fever in the city of Buenos Ayres than the sickening details published in the “ Times” a few days ago. A prominent merchant in the plaugeridclen city, whose family had fled to the little village of Belgrano, writes to Con-sul-General Davison that the fever was getting worse and worse, and more malignant day after day; that it had increased to such a fearful extent that the death rate amounted to between 600 and 700 each clay, and that the frightful decimation occurred among a population reduced by flight and fever from 250,000 to 25,000. The National Government of the Argentine Republic issued a decree closing the Government banks, Custom House, and all public offices until the Ist of May, in order that the city might be thoroughly evacuated and disinfected. The gentleman further says that all the mercantile houses had, inconsequence of the decree, closed their doors, and should the epidemic not have subsided by the first of the month, the Government decree would be renewed until it had. A DARK PICTURE. An extract from a letter written April 14th, at Montevideo, which is only forty leagues from tlio stricken capital, speaks of the city of Buenos Ayres as more desolate than the darkest picture which history has given us of Egyptian solitude and agonised suffering. Even the vegetation seems to have been infected by the malaria, and in the gardens once embowered in bloom, and along the once gay thoroughfares so recently verdant with the stately and noble palm, everything is wilted and wasted by neglect, or withered and deadened by the scorching rays of an almost torrid sun. All is dead or dying. A pall appears to bang over the doomed precincts, and the awful silence of all that is left of a large city now in its deaththroes, is only interrupted by the moans of the dying, or the harsh clattering of cart after cart as they rumble over the cobble-stones, hastily bearing their dead burdens to the adjacent cemetries. SUSPENSION OF BUSINESS. Reports from Montevideo also state that the Government decree advising the general suspension of business and total evacuation of the city by all except the few designated to care for the sick, had proved ineffectual, and that the military bad been called upon and force used to compel those disposed to remain within the limits of the scourged city to leave their dwellings and retire to the country. Nearly every one of the better classes, of course, who could leave, had long ago left, but a singular fascination seemed to have seized the poorer people huddled along the quays, water fronts, and the outskirts of the city, which induced them to make no exertion whatever for the salvation of their lives, and stupidly courted death amid the filthy and feverish hovels in which they dwelled until forcibly ejected by the authorities.