No sooner was the cause of the death of Constantine ascertained than the peasants took the necessary steps for their security. Application was made to Lady Hester for an order to turn the family of the deceased, and those who were known to have been near him in his illness, out of the village: which was immediately granted, and the performance of it was fixed for the ensuing morning. I made use of what arguments I could to persuade them of the necessity of burying the corpse; but nobody was found willing to carry it to the grave. At length, filial duty and the ties of kindred induced his son and a young man betrothed to his daughter to perform this last office for him: and, about nine o’clock at night, without any of the customary funeral ceremonies, the body was borne to the churchyard, on an opposite hill a quarter of a mile off, and thrown into a cave. The next morning at daylight the family retired from their cottages to a valley under the village, where was a spring of water and a grotto in the rock, which afforded them a tolerable habitation and a cover from the sun.
It is not to be imagined that, in Syria, in the month of May, there is any hardship in being compelled to live in the fields. A fine climate renders the shade of a tree more agreeable than the most commodious apartment. The natives, indeed, profess that they would often reside from choice in the fields, were it not that the security of their persons and property against robbery, as well as against soldiers, obliges them to live within doors.
In a day or two the consternation and prudence of the peasants subsided, so that they again resorted to the gardens as before. But on Sunday, May the 8th, their terror was renewed by the certainty that four of Constantine’s family had fallen ill at once, nine days from his death. This marked interval between infection and the manifestation of the disease will show that, such persons as magnify the powers of contagion by statements that the plague can communicate and declare itself within twenty-four hours, nay, within one hour, are probably deceived; for, in this case and some others which I observed, an interval of eight, eleven, or more days, elapsed. Thus it was, that, on the 4th of May, a man died of the plague at the village of Salhyah, one mile from Abra: and, a fortnight after, his father, mother, and sister, were attacked and died in three days.
The next day three children in the village were found to be infected; and, on the 10th, Constantine’s son, a youth of twenty, who was taken ill on the 8th, died. The children were immediately expelled from the village, and betook themselves to the same place as the others, now a sort of lazaretto. On the 11th, six more fell ill. The panic became general. Each family in the village packed up bed and baggage, and fled to the neighbouring fields, where, constructing huts of stakes, canes, and leafy boughs, sufficient for themselves and their silkworms, which they took with them, they mutually avoided each other. I and my servants, with four families besides, alone remained. Giovanni was so alarmed, that, had he known where to seek refuge, he would have left me also.
During this time everybody in the Convent was in good health: so that, when the cases of infection multiplied in the village, Lady Hester became frightened, and thought it better, surrounded as I had been with the infected, that I should converse with her in the outer court of the convent, without entering any of the rooms: and during the remainder of this plague I continued to do so. When at Latakia, she had purchased some bezoar and serpent stones, in which Orientals have great faith; and she was now desirous of trying their efficacy on those infected with the plague. The results were, as might be expected, not satisfactory. She next went in person to the spot where Constantine’s family was, and gave them Dr. James’s powders to take, and money to buy themselves provisions; but her humanity and courage could not save them.
From the 11th to the 17th persons were daily taken ill, and deaths daily happened; so that, from the 8th to the 17th, I reckoned thirty cases of infection and thirteen deaths. On the event of a death in a village, it was customary before the plague for everybody to join the funeral, and mourn and howl over the corpse; the women beating their breasts, whilst the men loosened their shawls from their heads, and used other tokens of despair. On such occasions, too, the peasants from the neighbouring villages would assemble and join in the ceremony. The corpse was carried on a bier, dressed; as coffins are not in use among the Christians of Mount Lebanon. But when Nicôla, son of Constantine, died, it was impossible to find any one to bury him; and men were sent for from Sayda, who devoted themselves, for the sake of a trifling gain, to almost certain destruction; since, for three piasters a head, they came a distance of three miles, and carried a pestiferous corpse to a charnel-house.
The burying-ground of Abra was near the church, on a hill facing the village. The cries of his intended brother-in-law (who alone followed him to the grave) were heard very distinctly in the stillness of noon-day, the hour that he was carried to his last home. It was a mournful scene, and the young man’s moans haunted me in my sleep for some nights afterwards. Nor by day was my mind free from trouble on my own account: for it will readily be conceived that, in cases like the present, every one must labour under many apprehensions and difficulties. The spring from which water was brought was half a mile off; and, whilst my maid servant was gone to fetch it, for I durst not employ any one else, I was in a state of constant apprehension lest her imprudence should expose her to infection. Nor could I be sure, when from home myself, that she or the man would not have communication with dangerous persons. I durst not send out my linen, which, in consequence, she was obliged to wash. On the 17th of May, Giovanni was suddenly seized with vomiting and giddiness, both symptoms of the plague. I immediately hired two men to build a hut in a retired spot under some olive-trees, and sent for a Turk from Sayda to come and nurse him: then, communicating to Lady Hester my apprehensions that Giovanni had caught the infection, which from him would almost certainly be caught by me, I returned to my cottage. My maid servant fled, and I remained alone, with the agreeable reflection that I must now cook and wash for myself; for I was become a dangerous person to approach. I could not hire a Turkish servant for myself also; for a Turk may have touched an infected person before coming to you, and, when shut up, may be found himself to be infected. I fumigated my cottage throughout, in which, too, I was somewhat unfortunate; for, after the plague was over, a peasant woman laid claim to compensation from me, because, she said, I had caused all her silkworms to die by the smell of my drugs.
The weather, on the 1st of May, had set in with great heats, and the 14th and 20th were intolerably oppressive, augmenting, as it would seem, the violence of the contagion; for the deaths and new cases of infection continued to increase. In Sayda, likewise, the deaths now amounted to ten a day. On the 21st, Giovanni’s indisposition having turned out to be nothing but a bilious fever, and having yielded to the remedies I had given him, I took him back again to my cottage, to his and my own great satisfaction.
The difficulty of finding persons to bury the dead was greater than ever. The same men, who before had risked their lives for three piasters a head, now obtained nine, and a chicken besides, for burying an interesting young girl, named Berjût, the daughter of a peasant, whose beauty was of no common cast. Those of Constantine’s family who continued to die were buried in holes close to the cave where they had lived, and became a prey to the jackalls.
On the 17th, a villager named Shahûd buried his own son. He was a poor peasant, whose only means of maintenance were derived from an ass, which he hired out to carry persons and burdens. Poor as he was, he loved his boy beyond measure. The body of Constantine had been thrown into a charnel pit, which was the common receptacle of the dead, where corpses were heaped one on another; the entrance being merely blocked up with a large stone and mud cement. When Shahûd reopened it, to place his child there, the sight of the corpse of the man whose imprudence had first brought the malady into the village so enraged him, that he endeavoured to drag it out, that he might vent his rage upon it, by leaving it to the jackalls: but it was too corrupt; and the limb by which he seized it separated (as he told me) from the trunk, and remained in his hand.