Note 107 — Chapter XI

Sir James Porter, in his Letters from the Levant, speaking of the importation of silk during the time of plague (page 446), says: “We may safely affirm that the plague scarce ever rages in those parts of the country where silk is—namely, at and about Antioch, at Tripoli, and Latakia. An accident may indeed appear once in fifteen or twenty years.” Is it possible that an ambassador, residing in the capital of the empire, and enabled by his situation to procure every kind of information he might desire, should yet have taken up with notions so diametrically opposite to the truth! although it must be confessed, that those who can afford it do build themselves huts of canes and branches of trees, in which they rear their worms; and the reason of this is, that the smells arising from cooking, and other offensive odours, may not, as was the case in my fumigation, kill the worms.