Page 524
An.1691
A Mortality. Bad Water.
or go out of his way to seek them. And this was the exploit which the French have thought fit to brag of. I hear that the Dutch have taken from them since, their Fort of Ponticheri.
But to proceed with our Voyage: We had not been at Sea long, before our men began to droop, in a sort of a distemper that stole insensibly on them, and proved fatal to above 30, who died before we arrived at the Cape. We had some- times two and once three men thrown over board in a morning. This distemper might probably arise from the badness of the Water, which we took in at Bencouli: for I did observe while I was there, that the River-water, wherewith our Ships were watered, a ws very unwholesom, it being mixt with the Water of many small Creeks, that proceeded from low Land, and whose streams were always very black, they being nourished by the Water that drained out of the low swampy unwholesom ground.
I have observed not only there, but in other hot Countries also both in the East and West Indies, that the Land-floods which pour into the Channels of the Rivers, about the season of the Rains, are very unwholesom. For when I lived in the Bay of Campeachy, the Fish were found dead in heaps on the shores of the Rivers, and Creeks, at such a season; and many we took up half dead: of which fudden mortality, there appeared no cause but only the malignity of the Waters draining off the Land. This happens chiefly, as I take it, where the wa- ter drains through thick Woods, and Savannahs of long Grass, and swampy Grounds, with which some hot Countries abound: and I believe it re- ceives a strong Tincture from the Roots of several kind of Trees, Herbs, &c. and especially where there is any stagnancy of the Water, it soon cor- rupts; and possibly the Serpents and other poison- ous