We have just heard of the caravan already mentioned, as going to Damascus and Aleppo. The plague has taken off eight of the Armenians, and four have been drowned. The head of the caravan is dead of the plague also, besides many others; they must therefore return to Bagdad, instead of advancing on their journey; so in this instance at least we see great reason to bless God for keeping us back. Yea, the Lord will instruct us and teach us the way in which we should go, and will guide us with his eye; this is our confidence and comfort; and in such a time as this of unheard of perplexity, what a source of abiding peace is this. We feel it well to know our God in such circumstances as ours. Among the Armenians, thirteen died to-day, the largest number yet in one day.
April 30.—The report of the flight of the Pasha, it appears was not true, and arose from the two circumstances I have mentioned, of his horses having been seen running about the streets, and his supplies being open to the people. He has been for several days endeavouring to get away, and had drawn up for that purpose some boats under the Seroy. All his stables were levelled to the ground, and the place flooded with water. When the distress of the people was mentioned to him, he ordered one of his corn stores to be opened to them. However, to-day, blessed be God’s Holy Name, the waters have sunk more than a yard, so we trust the great danger is over.
To-day, one more was brought out dead from the eight opposite houses, making twenty-five, and we know there are four more lying ill there. Our poor schoolmaster, who went in the caravan, is dead, and was buried in his tent.
May 1.—The Lord has brought us all in safety to the beginning of another month, through the most trying period of my life; yet the Lord has every day filled our mouth with praise, and enabled us to see his preserving hand.
To-day, as I passed along the street, I saw numbers of dead bodies lying unburied, and the dogs eating with avidity the loathsome food. Oh! it made my very heart sink. The numbers of the dead can now be no longer ascertained, for most of the bodies are buried either in the houses or in the roads; yet amidst all this, the Lord suffers not the destroying angel to enter our dwelling; but we feel the Lord has commanded the man with the ink-horn to write us down to be spared, as this is one of the vials of God’s wrath on his enemies.
May 2.—We have heard nothing to-day to vary the general scene of our calamities; the intensity of this most desolating disease surpasses all thought. Numbers of families are altogether swept away; in numerous others, out of ten or twelve, only one, two, or three remain; but I hear of none, save our own, where death has not entered. Yet, while I bless and praise the Holy Name of our Lord, under whose wing alone we came here, and under whose wing alone we have trusted, the things my eyes have seen, and my ears heard, press upon my heart, and make me at times very sad; neither can I chase them from my mind. I can only look forward for comfort to that day, when the Lord himself will come to put an end to this dispensation of desolation, and introduce his own peace. Yea, come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
We have just heard melancholy tidings of another caravan, which endeavoured to escape into Persia from the plague, but has been forced back again by the Arabs, the floods, and the scarcity of provisions, and besides numbers among them have died daily of the plague, so still we can bless God we did not leave our present position by this last opportunity. Let us then again bless him for not allowing us to make haste.
May 3.—To-day we trust the Lord has a little alleviated the virulence of the plague; many attacked yesterday, and the day before, have been rapidly recovering, and fewer deaths have taken place to-day—a great deal so far as we can ascertain. May God’s holy name be praised, who is a hiding place from every storm. We had our water jars filled again to-day, when many, even of the rich, who have connections in every direction, find the greatest difficulty. “Your water shall be sure.” We who are alone, and without a friend within hundreds of miles in any direction, have been supplied by our Lord’s gracious ordering; thus he puts a new song into our mouths, even a song of thanksgiving. To-day all are well, even our dear little baby is quite recovered.
May 4.—The weather has for these two or three days past been beautifully fine, and clear, and hot, by which our God seems to have mitigated the symptoms of the plague. All accounts to-day are encouraging; the number of new cases few, and the number of those recovering many. Our eyes have also been rejoiced by the sight of three or four water-carriers passing again, after an interval of ten days; many more people have also been passing and repassing than before; so we trust the Lord is now taking away this desolating judgment, which, in less than two months, has carried away more than half the population of this city; for, allowing that it had been silently making its deadly course three weeks before it was discovered, it does not exceed eight weeks, and by far the greatest portion of deaths have been within the last four weeks.
May 5.—In my journal yesterday, I mention more than half the population as having been swept away in the inconceivably short space of two months, but every account I have received, convinces me that this is within the number; certainly not less than two thirds have been swept away, and this seems to have arisen from a complication of causes. At the time when the great mass of the population would have fled, and thus have thinned the city, the waters rose so high, that they could move only with great difficulty; they waited in the hopes of the water subsiding, instead of which, it so increased, that those who had left the town and could get back, were compelled to return; those who could not, were driven to seek some high ground where they might remain safe from the water, but in all cases they were crowded together without the power of moving their position.—Again, in the city, when by the death of immense multitudes the population became greatly thinned, the inundation of the water laid more than half the town level with the ground, and drove the remaining people to congregate together wherever they could find a dry place or an open house, so that often twenty or thirty came to reside together in the same house, as was the case next door to us; thus again the deaths became awfully great. Inquire where you will, the answer is, The city is desolate: around the Pasha four Georgians alone remain alive out of more than one hundred. The son of our Moolah, who is dead, told me to-day, that in the quarter where he lives, not one human being is left—they are all dead. Out of about eighteen servants and seapoys that Major T. left, fourteen are dead, two have now the plague,[29] and two remain well. Among the Armenians, more than half are dead. An Armenian who was with us to-day, tells us, there are not more than twenty-seven men left in one hundred and thirty houses. I, however, think that this is exaggerated.