Despite a complete defiance of every sanitary arrangement, with the graveyards, the sewers, and a tannery at the river's edge, no diseases originate here.

When cholera reached the mountains some years ago, nobody died from it.

The people simply took a bath in Mexican fashion, and recovered." Down in the barrancas, however, where the heat often becomes excessive, the climate is far from healthy, and I have seen even Indians ill with fever and ague, contracted generally during the rainy season.
Between these two extremes, on the slopes of the sierra, toward the warm country, at an elevation of 5,000 feet, I found the most delightful climate I ever knew.

It was like eternal spring, the air pure and the temperature remarkably even.

There is a story of a Mexican woman, who, settling in this part of the country, broke her thermometer because the mercury never moved and she therefore concluded that it was out of order.