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Meantime the rainy season was approaching, at which time the difficulties, already so great, must become multiplied in a land where roads were only so called by courtesy and were little more than beaten-down tracks. The return of the French army to the coast, where the vomito was now raging, meant death to many, and possible disaster to the army.
It was very important to get the army away from Vera Cruz as soon as possible, in order to avoid the yellow fever, or vomito, which usually visits that city early in the year, and is very fatal to persons not acclimated; but transportation, which was expected from the North, was arriving very slowly.
The air seemed to be no longer air, but some poisonous exhalation that had suddenly arisen and enveloped us. From the rear of the ravine in which we lay, billows of dark mephitic mist were rolling forward, surrounding us with their baleful influence. It was the vomito prieto, the fever itself, embodied in the shape of a fog.
This latter fact would seem more surprising, did we not know, that even the natives of Vera Cruz, who are not attacked with typhus in their own town, sometimes sink under it during the epidemics of the Havannah and the United States. This valley has been exempt from the malady for a considerable time; for we must not confound the vomito and the yellow fever with the irregular and bilious fevers.
I lingered one night, fishing over the side of the ship, until eleven o'clock, with a strong, healthy, first-class cadet, who had been under me in the watch on board the Didon. A foreboding of some sort seemed to weigh on his mind. I tried to cheer him up, but all in vain. By six o'clock next morning the terrible "vomito" had carried him off. Poor Gouin! I was very fond of him.
The norther drives away that fatal enemy of the city, the yellow fever; and when it fairly sets in to blow, that surely ends the disease for the season; its germs are swept away as if by magic. The insect plague is only second to that of the vomito as regards the danger and discomfort to be encountered in this "City of the True Cross." But even mosquitoes succumb to the northers.
Not counting the sick, the weak and the garrisons for the captured city and fort, the moving column was now less than ten thousand strong. This force was composed of three divisions, under Generals Twiggs, Patterson, and Worth. The importance of escaping the vomito was so great that as soon as transportation enough could be got together to move a division the advance was commenced.
It being ascertained that the men whose time would expire before the City of Mexico could possibly fall into the hands of the American army, would not remain beyond the term for which they had volunteered, the commanding-general determined to discharge them at once, for a delay until the expiration of their time would have compelled them to pass through Vera Cruz during the season of the vomito.
It being ascertained that the men whose time would expire before the City of Mexico could possibly fall into the hands of the American army, would not remain beyond the term for which they had volunteered, the commanding-general determined to discharge them at once, for a delay until the expiration of their time would have compelled them to pass through Vera Cruz during the season of the vomito.
It was very important to get the army away from Vera Cruz as soon as possible, in order to avoid the yellow fever, or vomito, which usually visits that city early in the year, and is very fatal to persons not acclimated; but transportation, which was expected from the North, was arriving very slowly.
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