As soon as I was dressed, I walked out into a large garden, and, as the sun was not yet so high as to make it sultry, was enjoying the balmy sweetness of the air, and the flowering shrubs, which in beauty and fragrance almost exceeded those of India, when I saw a servant run by the garden wall, enter the stable, and bring out a zebra. On inquiring the cause, I was made to understand that our noble host was taken suddenly ill. I immediately returned to the house, and found the domestics running to and fro, and manifesting the greatest anxiety, as well as hurry, in their looks. I went into the Brahmin's room, and found him dressed. He went out, and after some time, informed me that our kind host had a violent _cholera morbus_, in consequence of the various kinds of food with which he had overloaded his stomach at dinner; that he considered himself near his last end, and was endeavouring to arrange his affairs for the event. I could not help meditating on the melancholy uncertainty of human life, when I contrasted the comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscious usefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a short time since, with the agony which that trying and bitter hour brings to the stoutest and most callous heart--when it must quit this state of being for another, of which it knows so little, and over which fear and doubt throw a gloom that hope cannot entirely dispel. CHAPTER XI. _Lunarian physicians: their consultation--While they dispute the patient recovers--The travellers visit the celebrated teacher Lozzi Pozzi._ While I indulged in these sad meditations, and felt for my host while I felt no less for myself, I saw the physician approach who had been sent for. He was a tall, thin man, with a quick step, a lively, piercing eye, a sallow complexion, and very courteous manners, and always willing to display the ready flow of words for which he was remarkable. I felt great curiosity to witness the skill of this Lunar Aesculapius, and he was evidently pleased with the interest I manifested. It turned out that he was well acquainted with the Brahmin; and learning from the latter my wish, he conducted me into the room of our sick host. We found him lying on a straw bed, and strangely altered within a few hours. The physician, after feeling his pulse, (which, as every country has its peculiar customs, is done here about the temples and neck, instead of the wrist)--after examining his tongue, his teeth, his water, and feces, proposed bleeding. We all walked to the door, and ventured to oppose the doctor's prescription, suggesting that the copious evacuations he had already experienced, might make bleeding useless, if not dangerous.