Asia is the birth-place of the ruling peoples, the Aryans, and of the yellow race; it is the cradle of the great religions, Buddhism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism; and it is also the breeding-place of fearful epidemic diseases which from time to time sweep over mankind like devastating waves. Among these is the "Black Death," the plague which in the year 1350 carried off twenty-five millions of the people of Europe. Men thought that it was a divine punishment. Some repented and did penance; others gave themselves up to drunkenness and other excesses. They had then no notion of the deadly bacteria, and of the serum which renders the blood immune from their attacks.
In 1894 a similar wave swept from China through Hong Kong to India, where three millions of human beings died in a few years. I remember a small house in the poor quarter of Bombay which I visited in 1902. The authorities had given orders that when any one died of the plague a red cross should be painted beside the doorpost of the house. And this small house alone had forty crosses.
And now in 1906 the plague had reached Seistan. From the roof of the house where I lived with some English officers, we could see the unfortunate people carrying out their dear ones to the grave. We could see them wash the bodies in a pool outside the walls, and then resume their sad procession. The population of the small town seemed in danger of extermination, and at length the people fled in hundreds. An English doctor and his assistant wished to help them by means of serum injections, but the Mohammedan clergy, out of hatred of the Europeans, made the people believe that it was the Christians who had let loose the disease over the country. Deluded and excited, the natives gathered together and made an attack on the British Consulate, but were repulsed. Then they went back to their huts to die helplessly.
They tried as far as possible to keep the cases of death secret and carried out the corpses at night. Soon the deaths were so frequent that it was impossible to dig proper graves. Those, therefore, who thought of the hyænas and jackals, digged their own graves beforehand. Processions round the mosque of the town were instituted, with black flags and a sacrificial goat at the head, and the mercy of Allah was implored. But Allah did not hear, and infection was spread among the people who flocked together to the processions.
Under the microscope the deadly microbes appear only as quite small elongated dots, though they are magnified twelve hundred times. They live in the blood of rats, whose parasites communicate the infection to human beings. It is therefore most important to exterminate all rats when an outbreak of plague occurs. The disease is terribly infectious. In a house where the angel of death descends and carries off a victim, all the inmates die one after another. Stupidly blind, the natives did not understand what was good for them, and could not be induced to burn infected clothes and the whole contents of a plague-stricken house. They would not part with their worldly goods and preferred to perish with them.
In one house dwelt a poor carpenter with his wife, two half-grown sons and a daughter. For two days the father had been oppressed by a feeling of weakness, and then, his body burning with fever, he lay raving in a corner on the floor of stamped earth. He was indifferent to everything and wished only to be left in peace. If his wife threw a rug over him he groaned, for the lymph glands, which swell up in large tumours, are exceedingly painful. In a couple of days the microbes penetrate from the tumour into the blood and the unfortunate man dies of blood poisoning. The vermin under the man's clothes leave the body as soon as the blood ceases to flow. Then is the danger greatest for the survivors who stand mourning round the deathbed, for the vermin seek circulating blood and carry infection from the corpse with them. It is useless to warn the natives of the danger, for they do not believe a word of it—and so die in their turn.
A Baluchi Raid
We were glad to leave a country where the plague had taken up its abode and to hasten away to the desert tracts of Baluchistan, which still separated us from India. My old servants had taken their departure, and a new retinue, all Baluchis, accompanied me.
We rode jambas, or swift-footed dromedaries, which for generations have been trained for speed. Their legs are long and thin, but strong, with large foot pads which strike the hard ground with a heavy tapping sound as they run. They carry their heads high and move more quickly than the majestic caravan camels; but when they run they lower their heads below the level of the hump and keep it always horizontal.
Two men ride on each jambas, and therefore the saddle has two hollows and two pairs of stirrups. A peg is thrust through the cartilage of the nose and to its ends a thin cord is attached. By pulling this to one side or the other the dromedary may be turned in any direction. My courser had a swinging gait but did not jolt; and I sat comfortably and firmly in the saddle as we left mile after mile behind.