THE TERROR OF THE TROPICS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 850, 15 August 1871, Page 2

THE TERROR OF THE TROPICS.

THE YELLOW FEVEB STILL RAGING I FRIGHTFULLY IN BUENOS AIRES. ' ["New York Times," May 21st.] ! j A gentleman, recently arrived in Baltimore from Montevideo, who left the City of Bunoes Ayres on the 10th of April, relates the following deplorable account of the ravages of the fever,in that 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 arid low, within the fated. limits of the once lovely South American capital., TJbe 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. Seldom, if ever, in his belief were a people visited with such a frightful calamity. Just before he left Buenos Ayres, on the-Bth April, the deaths exceeded fiOOsper day. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND BEAD AND FIFTEEN THOUSAND SICK. He estimated that at least twentyfive 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 terrorstricken and fled, leaving their suffering patients to the merciful care of the foreign doctors, whose ranks were being swiftly decimated by the dreadful malady. Mr Richard M'Sherryi of Baltimore, Md., the junior partner of the firm of Messrs Samuel B. Hale and Co., writes about the same time in regard to the death of Mr Edward'rE. Spring, the son of Hon. S. E. Spring. He says that young gentleman won the respect and admiration of all who knew him by his spirit and self-gaori-ficing- behaviour, as manifested in the heroic courage and fortitude with which he devoted himself to the care of the fsVerstricken. & 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 cemetery. In one instance,he says there were eleven persons in* a family down with the malady: «nd father, mother, brother, and sister, I followed each other to the grave" in 1 rapid succession. The last of the j family, a lovely daughter, who had for 1 days struggled nobly against the ter- 1 rible fatigue which she was called upon to endure, in not, only nursing, ] but burying her dear father, mother, j brother, and sister, was finally herself stricken down and died a wretched death, amid all the horrors of thebladk I •vomit in its most hideous form, alone and unattended, and it is said that days j elapsed before- her decomposed re- j mains were discovered and interred, j The first death among the Americans I in Buenos Ayres was that of Mr John H. Bean,, of Brownfield, Me. late datos, April 12th, from Buenos Ayres, by Brazilian steamer to Lisbon and j telegraphed here, as already published, report the deaths at 700 daily, which j show the disease to have increased at j the rate of fifty per diem since we 10th. ' THE EPIDEMIC INCREASES IS., v MALIGNITT. Privato advices from Buenos Ayres, by the steamship North America just arrived at this port from Bib de Janeiro, dated April 14th, and which hare

|gen anticipated by the Cuba despatch from Lisbon,, present, if anything, a mojrefrightful picture of the ravages 0 f th* pestilential fever in the city of Buenos Ayres than the sickening details published in the "Times" a few jays ago. A prominent merchant in the. plague-ridden city, whose family had fled to the little village of Belgrano, writes to Consul-General Davison that fhe 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 day, 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, m order that the city might be thoroughly, evacuated and disinfected. The gentleman further says that all the mercantile houses bad, in consequence 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 dar4 rrcrußE. An extract frofli a letter written April lith, at Montevideo, which is only forty leagues from the stricken capital, speaks of the city of Buenos Ayres 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 Hoom, and along the once gay thoroughfares so recently Terdant with the stately and noble palm, everything is wilted and wasted ey neglect, or withered and deadened fcjr thescorching rays ■of an almost torrid sun. All is dead or dying. A pall appears to hang'over the doomed pretiwte, and the awful silence of all that iilaftof a, large city now in its deathtotes, is only interrupted by the of the dying, or the harsh clattering of cart after cart as tley rattle over the cobble stones, hastily bearing their dead bodies to the adjacent cemeteries. SUSPENSION OP BUSIKESS.

Eeports from Montevideo also state that the G-overnment decree advising the general suspension... of business aid total evacuation of the city by all except the few appointed to care for the sick, has proved ineffectual, and that the military had been called tipon and "force used to compel those disposed to remain within the limits td-fhe scourged city to leave their dwellings and retire to the country. Ifesrly every one of the better classes, of course, who could leave, had long igo left, but a singular fascination seemed to have seized the .'poorer people huddled along the quays, water frouts,and the outskirts of the city, which induced them to make no exertion whatever for the salvation Of their lives, and supinely courted death amid the filthy and feverish hovels in which they ' dwelled until forcibly ejected by the authorities.