ernation
filled the minds of all.

The Sultan's own household was not free from the scourge. By some means it
found access to his servants and carried off about fifty of them. Their
bodies were cast into the Bosphorus, and the Sultan fled to another
palace. The ministers of the Sublime Porte suffered severely in their
families; their wives and slaves died off in numbers; and even the
minister of foreign affairs is said to have taken it and narrowly escaped.
Few survived when once attacked, and the chances of recovery were scarcely
worth calculating. And yet among the Mussulmans little or no precaution
was taken; for although by a government order all the principal offices
were provided with fumigatory boxes, they were seldom used. The Mussulman
Sheiks declared that the contagion came from Heaven, and could only be
averted by Almighty power. Yet it was a well-known fact that cleanliness
of habits went far toward preserving against the disease; and frequent
change of apparel, with ordinary precautions, sufficed to preserve many
who otherwise would doubtless have taken it.

But I think the reader will be able, from the preceding sketch, to form
some idea of the nature and extent of the mortality of the plague in 1837.
While it raged, every feeling approaching to a similarity with what is
known to denote an attack, excites apprehension. A pimple, through the
medium of the imagination, is transformed into a horrid _bubo_; a cold or
a simple head-ache, however trifling, are attributed to the dreaded
malady; and even the firmest mind at such times quails under trifling
appearances. In some cases the scene of agony closes in a few hours--even
minutes; they fall down and almost immediately expire. Others linger for
twenty-four or forty-eight hours, or several days elapse before death puts
an end to their sufferings. Some again bear it in their systems for
several days, and attend to their usual occupations: at length it appears,
they fall ill and expire, or recover. Few account for their being
attacked; they do not remember having touched any one suspected or
exposed; and again, the porters, whose duty it is to convey the attacked
to the hospitals and the corpses to their graves, escape. The mother
attends upon her dying child, sacrifices every apprehension to her
affection, and yet escapes, or the child brings it to its parent, who
dies, while the innocent cause survives. No cure has yet been found for
it; and Nature must be l