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, whose only notions
regarding _cases_ were acquired in the course of his mercantile
transactions, and who believed a plague case and a six dozen champagne
case to be much about the same article, ejaculated, "Three _cases_ of
plague! Merciful heavens!--if the major wanted to preserve such
abominable virus, could he not have brought a smaller quantity? Three
cases! If it _should_ run out, how it might spread about the town!"

(The "divinity" of the sheikh of the Chabeans is worth record. He was
pleased with Mr. Stocqueler's medical zeal, and more so with a box of
ointment which he laid "at his feet as a certain remedy for the