The old men seemed to indulge in a superstitious tradition, that when this peculiar kind of epidemy attacks a country, it does not return or continue for three or more years, but disappears altogether (after the first year), and is followed the seventh year by contagious rheums and expectoration, the violence of which lasts from three to seven days, but is not fatal. Whether this opinion be in general founded in truth I cannot determine; but in the spring of the year 1806, which was the seventh year from the appearance of the plague at Fas in 1799, a species of influenza pervaded the whole country; the patient going to bed well, and on rising in the morning, a thick phlegm was expectorated, accompanied by a distressing rheum, or cold in the head, with a cough, which quickly reduced those affected to extreme weakness, but was seldom fatal, continuing from three to seven days, with more or less violence, and then gradually disappearing. During the plague at Mogodor, the European merchants shut themselves up in their respective houses, as is the practice in the Levant; I did not take this precaution, but occasionally rode out to take exercise on horseback. Riding one day out of the town, I met the Governor’s brother, who asked me where I was going, when every other European was shut up? “To the garden,” I answered. “And are you not aware that the garden and the adjacent country is full of (Genii) departed souls, who are busy in smiting with the plague every one they meet?” I could not help smiling, but told him, that I trusted to God only, who would not allow any of the Genii to smite me unless it were his sovereign will, and that if it were, he could effect it without the aid of Genii. On my return to town in the evening, the sandy beach, from the town-gate to the sanctuary of Seedi Mogodole,[156] was covered with biers. My daily observations convinced me that the epidemy was not caught by approach, unless that approach was accompanied by an inhaling of the breath, or by touching the infected person; I therefore had a separation made across the gallery, inside of my house, between the kitchen and dining parlour, of the width of three feet, which is sufficiently wide to prevent the inhaling the breath of a person. From this partition or table of separation I took the dishes, and after dinner returned them to the same place, suffering none of the servants to come near me; and in the office and counting-house, I had a partition made to prevent the too near approach of any person who might call on business; and this precaution I firmly believe to be all that is necessary, added to that of receiving money through vinegar, and taking care not to touch or smell infectious substances.