We tend to think of ourselves as experiencing something entirely new, struck by a global pandemic. It has certainly altered the way we live beyond anything our reluctant imaginations could ever conjure. If -- and it isn't likely -- we ever paused in our busy lives, to consider what such a catastrophe enveloping the world as we know it might turn out. Despite that from time to time we've read warnings issued by world-renowned epidemiologists who have been preparing for years for such an inconceivable event. Inconceivable to us, entirely and rationally conceivable to them.

Until with seemingly lightning-speed a new coronavirus presented itself, and we read with little interest that something new that produced a pneumonia-like effect in its victims had emerged somewhere far off in China. Where it had no intention of remaining and began to travel widely, like a seasoned traveller determined to circle the globe. It did, and we've been in various states of lockdown, mourning and fearful suspense ever since.

So it's beyond interesting to read in the most current book you're absorbed in, a historical account that resonates, reminding that the world has always been challenged by such events.

"As there were few European-trained doctors or surgeons in Quito, the Frenchmen's services would have been in great demand. Accompanied by their friend, the emigre French doctor Raimundo Dablanc (who, back in 1736, had loaned money to the expedition to carry out its initial geodesic surveys), they would likely have made the rounds dressed in the peaked hats, red coats, silver-buckled shoes, and blue pano asul capes that marked the local doctors as distinctively as their gold-handled walking sticks. The men certainly did not lack for work, as the church-run hospitals were frequently overcrowded, understaffed, and in disrepair. Sickness and death were constant neighbours in the eighteenth century, wherever one found oneself; child mortality rates in 'backwards' Peru were actually little different from those in 'advanced' Europe. On both continents, parents knew that one in four newborns would die in the first year, and half their children would not live to adulthood. The anguish of loss was not diminished by this knowledge, and neighbourhoods in both Europe and the Americas regularly resounded with the keening of bereaved mothers and fathers."

"Infectious diseases were the primary cause of this suffering. In the eighteenth century, they raced around the world in epidemic cycles, borne between Europe and remote regions such as Peru by caravans and ships carrying goods throughout the already globalized economy. None of the dozen or so great killers -- including measles, yellow fever, smallpox, malaria and diphtheria -- originated in South America. Many of these diseases incubate in domesticated herd animals (pigs especially) that live in close proximity to humans, whereas for much of their history the Indians had only guinea pigs and Llamas, which made for bad hosts. The diseases came with the first conquistadores and quickly spread far beyond their original contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, devastating their populations long before most of the victims ever saw a European. Smallpox, for example, likely killed off much of the Inca population in the late 1520s, including its great ruler Huayna Capac, leaving his kingdom in disarray and making it easy pickings for Pizarro and his conquistadores when they arrived just a few years later."

"By the beginning of the 1600s, the Indian populations around Quito had been cut down by almost 90 percent and was rebounding only very slowly. Every decade or so another epidemic laid the population low; the last great epidemic of 1718-1723 most likely influenza, destroyed a quarter of the Indian population in Peru before extinguishing itself."*

It's been cold today -- we're heading back to colder temperatures. When we were out in the ravine this afternoon it was -10C, and steadily falling, with a sharp, gusting wind, partially overcast with occasional glimpses of sun. For the next few days it will be progressively colder, though still not yet in -20 territory, so we can be grateful for that, at the very least.

Jackie and Jillie seem impervious to the cold, as long as they're trussed in their sweater, coat and harness, in that order. For the first half of our circuit we found few people about, but soon we came acounter groups, one with five preteens who took whooping turns taking running leaps onto their backsides to slide down the hillside trails, having the time of their lives. Their dogs running happily alongside the snow-gliding children.