An account of the empire of Marocco, and the districts of Suse and Tafilelt; compiled from miscellaneous observations made during a long residence in, and various journies through, these countries. To which is added an account of shipwrecks on the western coast of Africa, and an interesting account of Timbuctoo, the great emporium of Central Africa

by James Grey Jackson

CHAPTER VIII.

Some Account of a peculiar Species of Plague which depopulated West Barbary in 1799 and 1800, and to the Effects of which the Author was an eye-witness.

From various circumstances and appearances, and from the character of the epidemical distemper which raged lately in the south of Spain, there is every reason to suppose, it was similar to that distemper or plague which depopulated West Barbary; for whether we call it by the more reconcileable appellation of the epidemy, or yellow fever, it was undoubtedly a plague, and a most destructive one, for wherever it prevailed, it invariably carried off, in a few months, one-half, or one-third, of the population.

It does not appear how the plague originated in Fas in the year 1799.[147] Some persons, who were there at the time it broke out, have confidently ascribed it to infected merchandize 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,[148] 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.

In the month of April, 1799, a dreadful plague, of a most destructive nature, manifested itself in the city of Old Faz, which soon after communicated itself to the new city. This unparalleled calamity, carried off one or two the first day, three or four the second day, six or eight the third day, and increasing progressively, until the mortality amounted to two in the hundred of the aggregate population, continuing with unabating violence, ten, fifteen, or twenty days; being of longer duration in old than in new towns; then diminishing in a progressive proportion from one thousand a day to nine hundred, then to eight hundred, and so on until it disappeared. Whatever recourse was had to medicine and to physicians was unavailing; so that such expedients were at length totally relinquished, and the people, overpowered by this terrible scourge, lost all hopes of surviving it.

Whilst it raged in the town of Mogodor, a small village (Diabet), situated about two miles south-east of that place, remained uninfected, although the communication was open between them: on the thirty-fourth day, however, after its first appearance at Mogodor, this village was discovered to be infected, and the disorder raged with great violence, making dreadful havock among the human species for twenty-one days, carrying off, during that period, one hundred persons out of one hundred and thirty-three, the original population of the village, before the plague visited it; none died after this, and those who were infected, recovered in the course of a month or two, some losing an eye, or the use of a leg or an arm.

Many similar circumstances might be here adduced relative to the numerous and populous villages dispersed through the extensive Shelluh province of Haha, all which shared a similar or a worse fate. Travelling through this province shortly after the plague had exhausted itself, I saw many uninhabited ruins, which I had before witnessed as flourishing villages; on making enquiry concerning the population of these dismal remains, I was informed that in one village, which contained six hundred inhabitants, four persons only had escaped the ravage. Other villages, which had contained four or five hundred, had only seven or eight survivors left to relate the calamities they had suffered. Families which had retired to the country to avoid the infection, on returning to town, when all infection had apparently ceased, were generally attacked, and died; a singular instance of this kind happened at Mogodor, where, after the mortality had subsided, a corps of troops arrived from the city of Terodant, in the province of Suse, where the plague had been raging, and had subsided; these troops, after remaining three days at Mogodor, were attacked with the disease, and it raged exclusively among them for about a month, during which it carried off two-thirds of their original number, one hundred men; during this interval the other inhabitants of the town were exempt from the disorder, though these troops were not confined to any particular quarter, many of them having had apartments in the houses of the inhabitants of the town.

The destruction of the human species in the province of Suse was considerably greater than elsewhere; Terodant, formerly the metropolis of a kingdom, but now that of Suse, lost, when the infection was at its height, about eight hundred each day: the ruined, but still extensive city of Marocco,[149] lost one thousand each day; the populous cities of Old and New Fas diminished in population twelve or fifteen hundred each day,[150] insomuch, that in these extensive cities, the mortality was so great, that the living having not time to bury the dead, the bodies were deposited or thrown altogether into large holes, which, when nearly full, were covered over with earth. All regulations in matters of sepulture before observed were now no longer regarded; things sacred and things prophane had now lost their distinction, and universal despair pervaded mankind. Young, healthy, and robust persons of full stamina, were, for the most part, attacked first, then women and children, and lastly, thin, sickly, emaciated, and old people.

After this violent and deadly calamity had subsided, we beheld general alteration in the fortunes and circumstances of men; we saw persons who before the plague were common labourers, now in possession of thousands, and keeping horses without knowing how to ride them. Parties of this description were met wherever we went, and the men of family called them in derision (el wurata) the inheritors.[151] Provisions also became extremely cheap and abundant; the flocks and herds had been left in the fields, and there was now no one to own them; and the propensity to plunder, so notoriously attached to the character of the Arab, as well as to the Shelluh and Moor, was superseded by a conscientious regard to justice, originating from a continual apprehension of dissolution, and that the El khere,[152] as the plague was now called, was a judgment of the Omnipotent on the disobedience of man, and that it behoved every individual to amend his conduct, as a preparation to his departure for paradise.

The expense of labour at the same time encreased enormously,[153] and never was equality in the human species more conspicuous than at this time; when corn was to be ground, or bread baked, both were performed in the houses of the affluent, and prepared by themselves, for the very few people whom the plague had spared, were insufficient to administer to the wants of the rich and independant, and they were accordingly compelled to work for themselves, performing personally the menial offices of their respective families.