flourishing villages before the plague. Making enquiry
concerning the population of these dismal remains of the
422 pestilence, I was informed, that one village contained six hundred
inhabitants; that only four had escaped. Others, which had
contained four and five hundred, had left seven or eight to lament
the calamities they had suffered.

Whenever any families retired to the country, to avoid the
infection; on returning to town, when apparently all infection had
disappeared, they were generally attacked, and died. The
destruction of the human species in the province of Upper and
LowerSuse was much greater than elsewhere. The capital city of this
province (Tarodant) lost, when the infection was at its _acme_,
about eight hundred each day; the city of Marocco lost one thousand
each day; the cities of Old and New Fas from twelve to fifteen
hundred each day; insomuch, that, in these large towns, the
mortality was such, that the living had not time to bury the dead:
they were therefore thrown altogether into large holes, which were
covered over when full of dead bodies.

Young and healthy robust persons were generally attacked first;
then women and children; lastly, thin, sickly, and old people.
_After the plague had totally subsided, we saw men, who had been
common labourers, enjoying their thousands, and keeping horses,
without knowing how to ride them. Provisions became extremely
cheap, for the flocks and herds had been left in the fields, and
had nobody now to own them. Day-labour increased enormously. Never
423 was equality in the human species more evident than at this time_.
_When corn was to be ground, or bread made, both were done in the
houses of the rich, and prepared by themselves; for the very few
poor people whom the plague had spared were insufficient for the
wants of the affluent, and they were consequently obliged to work
for themselves_. The country being now depopulated, vast tribes of
Arabs from the Desert poured into Suse and Draha; settling
themselves on the river Draha and in Suse, and wherever they found
little or no population.

The symptoms of the disorder varied in different patients; in some
it manifested itself by a sudden shivering, in others by delirium,
succeeded by a violent thirst. Cold water was drank eagerly by the