THE PLAGUE.

' I7I them in derision el wurata, the inheritors. Provisions also became extremely cheap and abundant ; the flocks and herds had been left in the fields, and there was now no one to own them ; and the propensity to plunder, so notoriously attached to the character of the Arab, as well as to the Shelluh and Moor, was superseded by a conscientious regard to justice, originating from a continual apprehension of dissolution, and that the el khere\ as the plague was now called, was a judgment of the Omnipotent on the disobedience of man, and that it behoved every individual to amend his conduct, as a preparation to his departure for paradise.

The expense of labour at the same time encreased enormously , and never was equality in the human species more conspicuous than at this time ; when com was to be ground, or bread baked, both were performed in the houses of the affluent, and prepared by themselves, for the very few people whom the plague had spared, were insufficient to administer to the wants of the rich and independent, and they were accordingly compelled to work for themselves, per-* Des gens parvenues, as the French express it ; or upstarts.

f The good, or benediction.

* At this time I received from Marocco a caravan of many camel-loads of bees-wax, in serrons containing 200 lbs. each ; I sent for workmen to place them one upon another, and they demanded one dollar per serron for so moving them.