in the country of Cossa;" whilst I should maintain that it would
admit of no other translation but the following, viz.--"the country
of Hausa, called Ecauree."

If you think this elucidation of the translation of the Manuscript
of Park's death sufficiently interesting to the public to deserve a
place in your intelligent paper, it is very much at your service.

From, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

JAMES GREY JACKSON,

Professor of African Languages, and formerly British Consul and
Agent for Holland, Sweden, and Denmark, at Santa Cruz, South
Barbary.[234]

_Circus, Minories, May 4._ 1819.

[Footnote 234: See BRITISH STATESMAN, May 6th, 1819.]

419

LETTERS RESPECTING AFRICA,
FROM
_J.G. JACKSON AND OTHERS._

_On the Plague._

To JAMES WILLIS, Esq. late Consul to Senegambia.

London, October 30, 1804.

My dear Sir,

Your letter reached my hands yesterday; but I am afraid I shall not
be able to satisfy you in every enquiry which you have made
relative to the plague in Barbary in 1799. I have, however, no
doubt but the plague which has prevailed in Spain has originated
from it. Some of the following observations may probably be of
service to you.

It does not appear to be ascertained how the plague originated in
Fas in the year 1799. Some persons have ascribed it to infected
merchandise received at Fas from the East; whilst others maintain
that the locusts which had infested Western Barbary during seven
years, destroying the crops, the vegetables, and every green thing,
even to the bark of the trees, produced such a scarcity, that the
420 poor could obtain scarcely any thing to eat but the locusts; and
living on them for several months, till a most abundant crop
enabled them to satisfy the cravings of nature, they ate abundantly
of the new corn, which producing a fever, brought on the contagion.
At this time the small-pox pervaded the country, and was generally
fatal. The small-pox is thought to be the forerunner of this
species of contagion, as appears by an ancient Arabic manuscript,
which gives a full account of the same disorder having carried off
two-thirds of the inhabitants of West Barbary