[18] Univ. Hist. vol. xv.

[19] See Appendix, [No. II].

[20] Gibbon’s Hist. vol. iv. Procopius, in speaking of the numbers who died in this extraordinary plague, compares them to the sand of the sea; and afterwards expresses them by a phrase which has been translated two hundred millions. The phrase is myriadas myriadon myrias. Mr. Gibbon, by dropping the first word, restricts the sense to one hundred millions; which he thinks not wholly inadmissible; but the probability seems to be, that Procopius did not mean to specify the number, but to represent it as incalculable. This is done by putting a comma, or semicolon, after the first word; and we may then read, that there perished myriads; a myriad of myriads. The grammar is rectified by reading myriades instead of myriadae.

[21] Univ. Hist. vol. xvii.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Journal of the Plague Year.

[24] See Appendix, [No. IV].

[25] An English gentleman, who resided in Bassorah at that time, preserved himself from the infection by retiring to a mud-house, where he had no communication with the inhabitants. Having a large quantity of Bengal cotton, he sold it to the people to wrap their dead in. The price was put in a basket, which he hauled up by a rope to his ware-room; lowering it again with the proportionate quantity of cloth. In the course of the summer he had an account of seventy thousand winding sheets thus disposed of!

(Transact. of a Society for improving Medical Knowledge.)

[26] Philosoph. Transact. No. 364.