The two companies of artificers in the garrison were early visited by the epidemic and but few comparatively escaped. Of those who were fortunate enough to bear up successfully against the disease, it was ascertained that the chief part had previously suffered from yellow fever in the West Indies. The artificers' barracks at Hargraves' Parade were a considerable distance from the locality where the disorder originated, and consequently, for a time, were free from fever; but several of the men having been employed in attending the sick civil master artificers of the department, at their own homes in the town, and the married families of the companies having unrestrained access to the Parade, infection was thus communicated to the single men in barracks; and the effect was seen too late to adopt any sanitary measures or restrictions to prevent its ingress. In August three men died, and in September ten, whilst the numbers affected by the malady were very considerable. By the beginning of October the fever had extensively spread; and all work in the engineer department being suspended, the companies were confined to barracks, and the families in quarters prohibited from appearing in the streets of the town unless from urgent necessity. Soon afterwards, to preserve their health, they were removed into camp at Beuna Vista. Nothing, however, could arrest the advance of the disorder: gloom and horror hourly increased, and in a very few days the sickness at the encampment far exceeded anything that had occurred at Hargraves', By the end of the month a mournful diminution had taken place, ninety men having fallen a prey to the epidemic! In November, providentially, the fever sensibly waned, and only twenty-three men died; and in December, after carrying off four more men, its influence ceased to be felt at the fortress. At the approach of the disease the companies mustered 263 of all ranks; but by the termination of the year 130 had died; thus reducing the companies to the strength of 133.[134] Here it may be added, that the royal military artificers lost during the fever more men proportionally than any regiment or corps in the garrison.[135] ----- Footnote 134: According to Sir James Fellowes, 229 men of the companies were admitted into hospital with the fever, of whom 106 recovered, and 123 died; but as Sir James has omitted the statistics for August in his tables, the apparent disparity between the two accounts is reduced to the trifling difference of 4 only, a mistake which, doubtless, occurred from some inaccuracy or accidental omission in the information furnished to Sir James from the Ordnance Hospital records. Footnote 135: This statement is borne out by Sir James Fellowes. See p. 450 of his work ‘On the Fever of Andalusia.’ -----