Note (return) — THE PLAGUE

It does not appear how the plague originated in Fas in the year 1799. 128 Some persons, who were there at the time it broke out, have confidently ascribed it to infected merchandise imported into that place from the East; whilst others, of equal veracity and judgment, have not scrupled to ascribe it to the locusts which had infested West Barbary during the seven preceding years, the destruction of which was followed by the (jedrie) small-pox, which pervaded the country, and was generally fatal. The jedrie is supposed to be the forerunner of this species of epidemy, as appears by an ancient Arabic manuscript, which gives an account of the same disorder having carried off two-thirds of the inhabitants of West Barbary about four centuries since. But however this destructive epidemy originated, its leading features were novel, and its consequences more dreadful than the common plague of Turkey, or that of Syria, or Egypt. Let every one freely declare his own sentiments about it; let him assign any credible account of its rise, or the causes that introduced so terrible a scene. I shall relate only what its symptoms were, what it actually was, and how it terminated, having been an eye-witness of its dreadful effects, and having seen and visited many who were afflicted, and who were dying with it.