"The southerly edge of the harbour is bordered by broad marshes, through which flow a number of watercourses, and to which these bring the offscouring of a very poor quarter of the town, and especially the effluent of the slaughtering-pens and of other foul establishments; while a large portion of the flat is used as a dumping-ground for garbage. "This intimate relation of marsh and filth is greatly aggravated by the admixture of fresh and salt water, by occasional floods, and by a daily scorching sun. "The vicinity of such marshes would be deadly in this climate, even to a veritable 'City of Hygeia.' Their proximity to this foul, fever-cursed town has always been recognised as disastrous, even by intelligent Habaneros themselves." The water supply of Havana is very pure and abundant,--more than two hundred gallons per head per day: "This and the winds of the Gulf save the city from being absolutely and unqualifiedly bad; but they are powerless to make it tolerable. It is a veritable plague-spot. "Its own people, largely immune though they are to yellow fever, which has prevailed here without interruption for one hundred and sixty-eight years, fall constant victims under the pernicious malarial and depressing influences to which they are always subjected; and it needs only the immigration of fresh material, which the enterprise of our population is sure to bring here, to create a sacrifice such as we have not yet known; while commerce will carry the terror and the terrible scourge of yellow fever to our shores, until we rise again in a war of humanity, and at all costs wipe out an enemy with which no military valour can cope. [Illustration: YARD OF AMERICAN CLUB, HAVANA.]