[114] The geography of this passage is not quite clear. Mare Maggiore appears to be the Mediterranean, which still retains that name: see the Vocab. della Crusca. In French, Mer Majeure is the Black Sea, according to Cotgrave and the Encyclopédie. If we adopt this interpretation, the author states that the plague spread from Asia to the Black Sea and the Mare Tirreno, probably the Tyrrhene or Adriatic Sea, and then returns to trace its progress in the Mediterranean. On the whole, the former interpretation seems the more probable, though it involves some repetition. The first gives a general statement of the course which the disease took from Asia to the coasts of the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, and then proceeds to particularise. It seems to have spread from India through Persia to Syria, Arabia, and Asia Minor (called in the text Turkey towards Egypt), and from China, or the upper part of India, through the north of Asia to Russia and Greece. The Levant trade introduced it into Sicily, Italy, and the west of Africa, whence it seems to have spread backwards towards Egypt. From Italy it crossed the mountains, and spread northward, even to Denmark, &c., which indeed may have received the infection either from their northern or southern neighbours. [115] A small town in the province of Languedoc, in the department of Gard. It was formerly a seaport, and Louis IX. of France twice embarked from it for the Holy Land, in 1248, 1269. By the gradual accretion of land at the mouth of the Rhone it is now three leagues from the sea, in a sandy plain, with unwholesome air, from the quantity of stagnant water about it. [116] In France this pestilence is said to have lasted about eight months in each place which it attacked.—Sismondi, Hist. des Français. [117] Matteo Villani, lib. i. cap. 1. [118] Continuatio Nangii, ap: Sismondi. [119] Sismondi, Histoire des Français. [120] Ripamonte, De Peste Mediolani, p. 17. From this interesting work the whole of the following account of the plague of Milan is taken. [121] The ‘Promessi Sposi’ of Manzoni contains a most vivid and interesting picture of this portion of the history of Milan. [122] Ripamonte, book i. If the reader can consult the original, he will see that the description is not overcharged. The Monatti, he continued, practised all sorts of insult towards living and dead, and dragged bodies along as rudely as a butcher drives his calves to the shambles. [123] Origine e Giornale successi della Gran Peste. Milan, 1648. [124] Ripamonte does not tell us whether any body went up into the belfry to ascertain this. [125] Alchemist, act ii. scene 3. [126] Loimologia: a consolatory advice and some brief observations concerning the present art. By George Thomson, Dr. of Physick, 1665. [127] Loimologia, or an Historical Account of the Plague in London. By Nath. Hodges, M.D. [128] Defoe, pp. 24, 25.