254  SELLING  LATIN  AMERICA
often  polluted.  Your  drinking  water  should
be  boiled;  if  good  water  is  not  obtainable
otherwise  drink  some  reliable  mineral  water.
Remember  that  plague  comes  from  the  bite  of
the  flea,  and  yellow  fever  and  malaria  from  the
bite  of  the  mosquito,  so  avoid  as  much  as  possible ­
  the  places  where  these  pests  are  to  be
found.  Daily  baths  are  apt  to  remove  danger
from  flea  bites  and  sleeping  under  a  net  minimizes ­
  the  possibilities  of  contracting  yellow
and  malarial  fevers.  Personal  hygiene  should
always  be  observed.  In  twenty  years  of  the
roughest  and  toughest  travelling  up  creeks  and
down  tropical  rivers,  through  forests  heavy
with  dew,  across  barren,  wind-swept  plains,
over  mountains,  in  high  and  low  altitudes,  by
exercising  these  suggested  precautions  I  have
had  only  one  serious  illness,  yellow  fever.
Conditions  have  vastly  improved  since  I  first
began  my  trips  and  are  getting  better  every
year.  With  judgment  one  could  now  take  a
journey  all  over  Latin  America  without  any
physical  dangers  or  serious  illness  intervening,
and  with  less  risk  than  he  would  be  liable  to