By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection which ensued when they felt themselves sickening; for the despair into which they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the disorder. Besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality. On the one hand, if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect: indeed, many houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the other hand, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence. This was especially the case with such as made any pretensions to goodness: a sense of honor prevented them from sparing themselves in their attendance at their friends’ houses, where even the members of the family were at last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of the disaster. Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked a second time—never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the congratulations of others, but themselves also in the elation of the moment half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease whatever. An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint; bodies lay one upon another in the agonies of thirst, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred places, also, in which they had quartered themselves, were full of corpses of persons that had died there. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger’s pile and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse, which they were carrying, on the top of another which was burning, and so went off.