it carried off two-thirds o f their original number, one hundred m en ; during this interval the other inhabitants o f the town were exempt from the disorder, though these troops were not confined to any p articular quarter, many o f them having had apartments in the houses o f the inhabitants o f the town. T h e destruction o f the human species in the province o f Suse was considerably greater than elsewhere ; Terodant, formerly the metropolis o f a kingdom, but now that o f Suse, lost, when the infection was at its height, about e ight hundred each d a y : the ruined, but still extensive c ity o f Marocco,* lost one thousand each d a y ; the populous cities o f Old and New Fas diminished in population twelve or fifteen hundred each day,")" insomuch, that in these extensive cities, the mortality was so great, that the livin g having not time to b u ry the dead, the bodies were deposited or thrown altogether, into large holes, which, when nearly full, were covered over with earth. A ll regulations in matters o f sepulture before observed-were now no longer regarded ; things sacred and things prophane had now lost their distinction, and universal despair pervaded mankind. Young, h e althy , and robust persons o f full stamina, were, for the most part, attacked first, then women and children, and lastly, thin, sickly, emaciated, and old people. A fte r this v io len t and deadly calamity had subsided, we beheld a general alteration in the fortunes and circumstances o f m en ; we saw persons who before the plague were common * I have been informed that there are.still at Marocco, apartments wherein the dead were placed; and that after the whole family was swept away the doors weie built iip> and remain so to this day. + There died, during the whole of the above periods, in the city of Marocco, 50,000; in Fas, .65,000; in Mogodor, 4,500; and inSaffy, 5,000; in all 124,500 souls! ' . labourers, now in possession o f thousands, and keeping horses without knowing how to ride them. Parties o f this description were met wherever we went, and the men o f family called 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propensity to plunder, so notoriously attached to the character o f the Arab, as w e ll as to the Shelluh and Moor, was superseded b y a conscientious regard to justice, originating from a continual apprehension of dissolution, and that the E l khere,-}- as the plague was now called, was a ju d g ment o f the Omnipotent on the disobedience o f man, and that it behoved e v e ry ind ivid u a l to amend his conduct, as a preparation to his departure for paradise. T h e expense o f labour at the same time encreased enormously, X and never was equ ality in the human species more conspicuous than at this time ; when corn was to be ground, or bread baked, both were performed in the houses o f the affluent, and prepared b y themselves, for the ve ry few people whom the plague had spared, were insufficient to administer to the wants o f the rich and independant, and they w ere accordingly compelled to work for themselves, performing personally the menial offices o f their respective families. T h e country being now depopulated, and much o f the territory without owners, va st tribes o f Arabs emigrated from th e ir abodes in the interior o f Sahara, and took possession o f the • 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 beeswax, 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.
27f 39
To see the actual publication please follow the link above