43
District,) are disposed to believe that enteric fever is endemic both in the bázár
and in the native city of Karáchi, where there are about 1,000 privies situated
on the flat roofs. These are supplied with earthenware utensils which are
said to be emptied every second day. Even this is an improvement on the
practice which formerly obtained of making the roof itself the place of natural
resort for the household where the sun desiccated the ordure which was blown
by the wind far and wide; but it is manifest that with human ordure lying for so
many hours within an inhabited area the breeze must become tainted and disease
is likely to arise from such an objectionable practice. I hope that the Munici-
pality which has so energetically carried out its water-supply will turn its atten-
tion towards the construction of a sewerage scheme which would get rid of the
night-soil difficulty once and for all. If no provision is made to carry off the water
after use, increased sickness will, I fear, attend its introduction.
The Napier or Infantry Barracks consist of upper and lower storied build-
ings ; the former are imposing edifices, but sanitarily speaking they are not
of good design, as they are constructed to hold as many as 66 men—the proper
number in a domitory does not exceed 24—whilst the ventilation, especially in
the upper storied barracks, is so excessive that they are cold and draughty.
When the doors are shut—and the British soldier dearly loves to exclude
fresh air—the atmosphere becomes impregnated with the emanations given off
by the lungs and bodies of so many men. I admit that there is some excuse for
the exclusion of the breeze, which usually blows very strongly both by day and
by night. Indeed the liability to chills is so great that Medical Officers used to
advise the men to fold their blankets across the middle part of the body, as ex-
posure to the wind during the hours of sleep is almost certain to be followed by an
attack of diarrhoea, fever, &c. Officers and residents in private houses are, as a
rule, careful not to sleep in a draught.
There is no sub-soil drainage, but in the immediate vicinity of the barracks
the water level does not rise within 20 feet of the surface, although no doubt
it mounts by capillary attraction much higher. The soil is sand and the
stratum of air over it becomes cold during the night and heavy dews and, occa-
sionally, fogs prevail.
Mr. Chambers in his meteorology of the Bombay Presidency, published in
1878, says : "The geological formation is tertiary, composed of strata of com-
minuted marine shells alternating with layers of arenaceous and argillaceous
limestone and with beds of a conglomerate consisting of rolled nodules of
foraminiferous limestone which appears in many places on the surface. The
surface soil is alluvial, covered in parts with drift sand of a silicious and micace-
ous character. The sub-soil is chiefly clay, highly impregnated with saline matter
and with sandstone lying at a greater depth.
" Except in the vicinity of the Layári River at the northern end of the camp,
which is the only cultivated spot, the aspect of the surrounding country is that
of a barren waste, nearly flat, relieved towards the eastern and northern limits
of the town land by a range of very low rocky hills. This part of Sind is with-
in volcanic range, as is shown by the hot springs issuing from the coralline rock
in the crater-like hollow of Mugger Peer, eight or nine miles due north of
Karáchi; the mud springs on the border of the Belooch Territory to the westward;
the upheaval of the Ullah bund and the submersion at Lukput on the eastern side
of the delta of the Indus in the earthquake of the year 1819.
" The cantonment stands about five or six miles to the eastward of the
harbour at Keemaree and runs parallel to the sea for a distance of about two miles
in a direction from south-east to north-west. The position in which it is situ-
ated bears evidence of having at one time been submerged and was probably in
the course of one of the mouths of the Indus.
" The Napier Lines are at the south and south-east end of the Cantonment,
and are nearly on a dead level and so little above the sea that rain lies where it
falls; this, coupled with the retentive nature of the sub-soil, renders the camp very
little better than a swamp after a very moderate fall.
" The observatory is erected in the Napier Hospital, which is built on a low
rocky ridge at an altitude of about 40 feet above sea level and half a mile from