strong and pestiferous as if the whole Peninsula had been encircled by filthy and stinking cesspools. And this was because that period of drought coincided with an extraordinary infection of the fishes of the sea, which died in infinite numbers, and their bodies, tossed up by the sea onto the shores, formed gigantic heaps of putrefaction, which poisoned the air. How great must have been the number of those dead fish, since it is stated that the vessels that were navigating near our coasts were checked in their courses and journeyed slowly, as if they were running in the belt of calms or through spaces filled with drifting ice! In vain our police force, then in embryo, sent out daily, from all the towns near the coast, files of Indians led by a Spaniard, for the purpose of burning the dead fish. The very stench of the burning came to be unbearable, so that finally the expedient was abandoned, as harmful.
Suffering under these tribulations, the people intensified their affliction, by dire forebodings, which existed more in their imagination than in reality. As always happens, in time of social calamity, aged persons spoke of similar times, in remote epochs, which had preceded horrible disasters. The air appearing thick and heavy, they imagined that the sun did not shine as it was accustomed to do, but was as if eclipsed; and, in fine, the inner sadness of minds was reflected in external things, conspiring to exalt the fancy with dread of vague misfortunes, of coming and fatal ills.
And the fear became reality, since in the month of June a terrible and contagious disease made its frightful appearance in Campeche. Whether it was the Levantine plague, which a little before had ravaged Europe and was brought by some vessel to the port, whether it was occasioned by the putrefaction of the dead fishes, whether it was the cholera which visited us for the first time, or whether it was the yellow fever scourging with an iron hand, we cannot say. It is enough to know that it was a terrible disease, which converted Yucatan into an immense cemetery. Sometimes, without any warning, it showed itself in intense pains in the bones, accompanied by excessive fever and delirium; at other times with the