ding
or swimming with their burthen, as the depth or shallowness of the water
required. In this way all the communication up the Tigris and Euphrates
is carried on when the wind blows down those rivers. The business of
tracking as may be conceived, is extremely fatiguing and dangerous: in
fact, so excellent a test does it furnish of the muscular powers and
courage of man, that the heads of the Mallah tribes require that each
Mallah should make three trips to Bagdad, as a tracker, before he can be
qualified for the married state and the care of a family.

(The plague rages at Bagdad, and he returns to Bussorah. On his way he
escapes a storm on the Euphrates.)

The river, which does not ordinarily rise until the month of June, now
rose with inconceivable rapidity, preceded by a violent storm, and in a
few hours inundated the whole Irak. Numberless villages of matted huts
were swept away; men, women, and children, were in a moment rendered
houseless; numerous cattle and sheep were drowned; date trees torn up by
the roots, and boats swamped or stranded. The artificial banks of the
river, which had governed our progress upwards, were now overflowed, and
it was with the greatest difficulty we could discover the river's bed
and escape getting aground.

(At Bussorah.)

Intelligence of the approach of the plague had spread consternation
throughout the city, and had sent thousands of its inhabitants into
retreat. The shops were closed--trade at a stand--the streets
deserted--houses tenantless--the oft busy creek had scarcely a boat
moving on its surface--the mosques were filled with the dismayed
Moslems, whom poverty or self-interest had kept in the town--the
Christian churches held the few Armenians and Chaldeans whom fear had
driven to pray with sincerity. Here might be seen a cluster of Zobeir
Arabs, meditating rapine: and there a straggling Jew, ruminating on the
losses he had sustained by the flight of the panic-stricken slaves of
his usury.

Aga Pharseigh had lost all his confidence and self-sufficiency. He had
sent off his family to Bushire; he was himself to sink into the humble
office of clerk to the resident; and he was (which he esteemed the most
distressing event of the three) to encounter face to face those who had
just left the "city of the plague." I had told him of the circumstances
under which I had met the resident, (coming from Bagdad,) and that there
were three cases of plague on board. The Armenian, who