Mr. Howard likewise gives particular accounts of the precautions used in several different countries through which he travelled. In Malta two kinds of quarantine are performed; one for ships with clean bills, the other for those with foul. The former lasts 18 days.[111] The crews and passengers are allowed to buy provisions, and converse by means of enclosures with stone posts and palisadoes. A letter received from a Turkish ship was taken by a pair of iron tongs, dipped in vinegar, put into a case, and laid for about a quarter of an hour on a wire grate under which straw and perfumes had been burnt; after which the letter was taken out and opened by one of the directors. In this island ships with foul bills must perform quarantine eighty days; but, at the end of forty, may change their station. The different kinds of goods are separated and placed in proper order under cover. The cottons are taken out of the bags containing them, and placed on rows of piles on boards, laid on stone pillars about 18 inches from the floors; and, in repacking them they are flung over a man who gets into the bags, and treads down the cotton; the consequence must be the exposing him to great danger, should any infection remain. [111] At Aleppo 20. (Russel.) Mr. Howard took a voyage to Venice in a ship with a foul bill, on purpose to know every thing relative to the performance of quarantine. “A messenger (says he) came in a gondola to conduct me to the new lazaretto. I was placed, with my baggage, in a boat fastened by a cord ten feet long to another boat in which were six rowers. When I came near the landing place the cord was loosed, and my boat was pushed with a pole on the shore, where I was met by the person appointed to be my guard. Soon after unloading the boat, the sub-prior came and showed me my lodging; a very dirty room, full of vermin, and without table, chair or bed. That day and the next morning I employed a person to wash my room; but this did not remove the offensiveness of it, or prevent that constant head-ach which I had been used to feel in visiting other lazarettos and some of the hospitals in Turky. My guard sent a report of my health to the office, and, on the representation of our consul, I was removed to the old lazaretto. Having brought a letter to the prior from the Venetian ambassador at Constantinople, I hoped now to have had a comfortable lodging. But I was not so happy. The apartment, consisting of an upper and lower room, was no less disagreeable and offensive than the former. I preferred lying in the lower room, on a brick floor, where I was almost surrounded by water. After six days, however, the prior removed me to an apartment in some respects better, and consisting of four rooms. Here I had a pleasant view; but the rooms were without furniture, very dirty, and no less offensive than the sick wards of the worst hospital. The walls of my chamber, not having been cleaned perhaps for half a century, were saturated with