THE PLAGUE* I67 the country, and was generally fatal. The jedrie is supposed to be the forerunner of this species of epidemy, as appears by an ancient Arabic manuscript, which gives an account of the same disorder having carried off two-thirds of the inhabitants of West Barbary about four centuries since. But however this destructive epidemy originated, its leading features were novel, and its consequences more dreadful than the common plague of Turkey, or that of Syria, or Egypt.

Let every one freely declare his own sentiments about it ; let him assign any credible account of its rise, or the causes that introduced so terrible a scene. 1 shall relate only what its symptoms were, what it actually was, and how it terminated, having been an eye-witness of its dreadful effects, and having seen and visited many who were afflicted, and who were dying with it.

In the month of April, 1799, a dreadful plague, of a most destructive nature, manifested itself in the city of Old Fas, which soon after communicated itself to the new city. This unparalleled calamity, carried off one or two the first day, three or four the second day, six or eight the third day, and increasing progressively, until the mortality amounted to two in the hundred of the aggregate population, continuing "with unabating viole7ice, ten, fifteen, or twenty days ; being of longer duration in old than in new towns •, then diminishing in a progressive proportion from one thousand a day to nine hun-* M 4