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2 pestilential fever peculiar to India, while others declare it to be
3 the same plague that was so common in the East, and especially
4 in Turkey and Egypt. He told me he would be very glad if
5 I would write to him my opinion about it, should I on my
6 journey observe the disease, as he considered it might be of great
7 importance both to himself and to science, because I had had
8 so much opportunity for studying the nature of the plague at
9 Constantinople, adding that he intended to publish my report.
10 About noon we arrived at the infected Palee, where we ordered
11 our tents to be pitched near to the large marsh, opposite to which
12 the town lies. The first sight which presented itself to our
13 eyes was the funeral trains of several of the inhabitants. After
14 dinner, at two o’clock, I repaired to the governor, who was
15 a Hindoo, and told him I was a traveller and a physician, and
16 that I wished to see a few infected persons, and administer to
17 them my medicines gratis, if he would kindly send some one to
18 accompany me. He received me very affably, and yielded to
19 my request. The man who accompanied me had not the trouble
20 to escort me far, as in the very next house there were several
21 patients, some of whom had only a short time to live. At
22 these visits I neglected no circumspection and precaution. I
23 never entered a house, but caused the patients to be brought
24 before the door, where I examined them, writing down their
25 names and their statements, and administering to them the reme-
26 dies, and I departed without having touched any of them.
27 The aspect of the town itself offered a sad spectacle : only now
28 and then I met with a human being: the bazaars and shops were
29 closed ; they told me that the greater part of the inhabitants
30 had either died, or left the town ; and numbers of houses
31 were quite deserted. The infected died in general on the third
32 or fourth day ; and scarcely one among twenty recovered. I
33 saw carbuncles, buboes, bleeding at the nose — in one. word all
34 that I had seen in the hospital at Constantinople. I no longer,
35 therefore, doubted that the disease was a most virulent plague.
36 It is true, that it was not the plague of Turkey, Arabia or Egypt,
37 but one peculiar to India ; Palee being a province of that part