At Hillah, the modern Babylon, (population 10,000), there is, Seyd Ibrahim told me to-day, scarce a soul left, and the dogs and the wild beasts alone are there feeding on the dead bodies. This Seyd Ibrahim is one of the surviving servants of Major T.; and is the only one of a family of fourteen who remains alive.—His four brothers, their wives, his own wife, their children, and his own, are all dead. If mystical Babylon is suffering, as the seat of this Archbishopric of the literal Babylon, the times are not far off when the river Euphrates shall be dried up for the kings of the east to pass over.
For digging a grave they ask a sum that equals in England three pounds, in consequence of which numbers have remained unburied about the streets, so that the Pasha has been obliged to engage men, paying them at the same rate for each body they will throw into the river.
In all the villages the desolation seems as complete as it is here. When day by day I rise and see our numbers complete, and all in health, my soul is indeed made to feel what cannot the Lord do? though ten thousand shall fall at thy right hand it shall not come nigh thee.—I do not yet see what effect all this is likely to have on our labours here—whether it will break down or build up barriers; yet we expect it will break down, for the Lord seems thus breaking to pieces the power if not the pride of this haughty people. I have been struck two or three times lately, in going out, with the intense hatred that lurks at the bottom of the hearts of this people against Christians; my dress manifested me to be one, and some Arabs I met, particularly the women, cursed me with the most savage ferocity as I passed, two or three calling out at me as though I were the cause of all their calamities; and the people who are come to live next door to us, are bitter against us, especially one man among them, who seems to have his heart quite corroded, because they are dying and we are preserved by our Lord’s love; he sits and talks under our window, saying, “These Christians and Jews alone remain, but in the whole of Bagdad you will hardly find one hundred Mohammedans.” This is altogether false, for though in proportion as many Christians may not have died as Mohammedans and Jews, yet the deaths among them have been enormous, as the preceding accounts will have shewn.
Medicine I have found of no use. If you attack the fever, they die of prostration of strength; if you endeavour to support the constitution, they die of oppression on the brain. Those cases which first affected the head with delirium, have been the most fatal; next those with carbuncles, which did not appear, however, for a fortnight after the commencement of the disease. Among those who have recovered, almost the whole have had large glandular swellings, speedily separating and thus relieving the constitution.
This night, the first time for three weeks, I have heard again the Muezzin’s call to prayers, from the minarets of the Mosques.
May 6.—The water to-day is much decreased. I saw a man also with fresh meat in his hand. I likewise saw many recovering from the plague walking about, leaning on sticks, and sitting by the way-side. The number of deaths, among the Armenians, to-day, amounted to 11, which, considering that their whole remaining numbers cannot exceed 300 at present, is an enormous mortality, and has a little damped our hopes of a speedy conclusion to this awful visitation.
May 7.—Of the plague nothing satisfactory to-day. Thieves are multiplying in every direction; and news has come from Mosul that a new Pasha has arrived there, who only waited for the cessation of the plague to advance against Bagdad. Great part of his work of destruction is already done for him, as hardly a Georgian is left, and he will find money enough left without owners, to supply his own utmost rapacity, or the demands of the Sultan. The Lord is our only secure resting place, and we know that he who delivers us out of six troubles, can and will deliver us out of seven.
The water is decreasing most rapidly, so that rice is beginning to be brought from the other side of the river; and as all those who monopolized the sale of wood, and not only asked enormous prices, but cheated in the weight, are all dead, every one now that needs wood takes it, so that the situation of the poor seems in this respect a little improved.
There has not been among all the circumstances of this scene of complicated suffering, any one that has more painfully affected my own mind than the increasing number of infants and little children that have been left exposed in the streets, and the absolute impossibility of meeting such a state of things. We greatly desired to take one or two; but our own little baby was ill, so that by night Mary had hardly any rest, and at best, not being strong in such a climate, we came reluctantly to the decision that we were not able to undertake such an additional charge.
This is an anxious evening. Dear Mary is taken ill—nothing that would at any other time alarm me, but now very little creates anxiety; yet her heart is reposing on her Lord with perfect peace, and waiting his will. A few hours, perhaps, may show us that it is but a little trial of our faith to draw us nearer the fountain of our life. To nature it seems fearful to think of the plague entering our dwelling; in our present situation, nothing but the Lord’s especial love could sustain the soul in the contemplation of a young family, left in such a land, at such a time, and in such circumstances; but we feel we came out under the shadow of the Almighty’s wing, and we know that his pavilion will be our sanctuary, let his gracious providence prescribe what it may. On his love, therefore, we cast ourselves with all our personal interests.