The evil effects of all this humidity, so far as they are dangerous, appear to be confined to the immediate vicinity of the river, and to the inhabitants of the city; for in the pampas the gauchos sleep upon the ground during the greater part of the year in the open air without risk. Their skins, however, like those of the cattle they watch, are probably impervious to the wet.
Before I went to Buenos Ayres I had suffered much from malaria fever, caught in Greece; and when I saw, for the first time, the low, flat, marshy appearance of the whole country, I expected nothing less than a return of my old ague. Everything around seemed to bespeak it: but Buenos Ayres is free from such disorders, and cases of intermittent fever, such as that I speak of, are rarely known there.
Still, though free from the malaria of the Mediterranean coasts, the sirocco of the Levant does not bring with it more disagreeable affections than the viento norte, or north wind of Buenos Ayres; indeed, the irritability and ill-humours it excites in some people amount to little less than a temporary derangement of their moral faculties: it is a common thing to see men amongst the better classes shut themselves up in their houses during its continuance, and lay aside all business till it has passed; whilst amongst the lower orders it is a fact well known to the police that cases of quarrelling and bloodshed are infinitely more frequent during the north wind than at any other time. In illustration of this, I shall quote a case in point, the account of which I received from one of the most eminent medical men in the country, who had paid particular attention during a practice of more than thirty years to its influence upon the human system.
In the year ---- a man named Garcia was executed for murder. He was a person of some education, esteemed by those who knew him, and, in general, rather remarkable than otherwise for the civility and amenity of his manners; his countenance was open and handsome, and his disposition frank and generous; but when the north wind set in he appeared to lose all command of himself, and such was his extreme irritability, that during its continuance he could hardly speak to any one in the street without quarrelling. In a conversation with my informant a few hours before his execution, he admitted that it was the third murder he had been guilty of besides having been engaged in more than twenty fights with knives, in which he had both given and received many serious wounds; but, he observed, it was the north wind, not he, that shed all this blood. When he rose from his bed in the morning, he said, he was at once aware of its accursed influence upon him;--a dull headache first, and then a feeling of impatience at everything about him, would cause him to take umbrage even at the members of his own family on the most trivial occurrence. If he went abroad his headache generally became worse, a heavy weight seemed to hang over his temples, he saw objects, as it were, through a cloud, and was hardly conscious where he went. He was fond of play, and if in such a mood a gambling-house was in his way he seldom resisted the temptation; once there, any turn of ill-luck would so irritate him, that the chances were he would insult some of the by-standers. Those who knew him, perhaps, would bear with his ill-humours, but, if unhappily he chanced to meet with a stranger disposed to resent his abuse, they seldom parted without bloodshed. Such was the account the wretched man gave of himself, and it was corroborated afterwards by his relations and friends, who added, that no sooner had the cause of his excitement passed away than he would deplore his weakness, and never rested till he had sought out and made his peace with those whom he had hurt or offended.