“The pestilence (says M. Savary) is not a native of Egypt. I have collected information from the Egyptians, and foreign physicians who have lived there twenty or thirty years; which all tended to prove the contrary. They have assured me that this epidemic disease was brought thither by the Turks, though it has committed great ravages. I myself saw the caravelles of the Grand Signior, in 1778, unlade, according to custom, the silks of Syria at Damietta. The plague is almost always on board; and they landed, without opposition, their merchandise, and their people who had the plague. It was the month of August; and, as the disease was then over in Egypt, it did not communicate that season. The vessels set sail, and went to poison other places. The summer following, the ships of Constantinople, alike infected, came to the port of Alexandria, where they landed their diseased without injury to the inhabitants. It is an observation of ages, that if, during the months of June, July and August, infected merchandise be brought into Egypt, the plague expires of itself, and the people have no fears; and if brought at other seasons, and communicated, it then ceases. A proof that it is not a native of Egypt is, that, except in times of great famine, it never breaks out in Grand Cairo, nor the inland towns, but always begins at the seaports on the arrival of Turkish vessels, and travels to the capital; whence it proceeds as far as Syria. Having come to a period in Cairo, and being again introduced by the people of Upper Egypt, it renews with greater fury, and sometimes sweeps off two or three hundred thousand souls; but always stops in the month of June, or those who catch it then are easily cured. Smyrna and Constantinople are now the residence of this most dreadful affliction.” M. Volney informs us, that the European merchants residing at Alexandria agree in declaring that the disease never proceeds from the internal parts of the country, but always makes its first appearance on the sea-coasts at Alexandria; from thence it passes to Rosetta, from Rosetta to Cairo, and from Cairo to Damietta, and through the rest of the Delta. It is invariably preceded by the arrival of some vessel from Smyrna or Constantinople; and it is observed, that if the plague has been violent during the summer, the danger is greater for the Alexandrians during the following winter.