_April 12._--I have just taken leave of the kind T.'s. The accounts of the dead are truly terrific; they say the day before yesterday 1200 died, and yesterday Major T.'s man of business obtained a receipt to the amount of 1040 on this side of the river. If this statement can be relied on, the mortality, within and without the city, must be truly appalling, and should it not please the Lord soon to stay the destroying Angel's hand, the whole country must become one wide waste. Some very kind Armenians[24] have offered to provide what is necessary for our journey to Damascus, if we will go with them. The possibility of meeting our dear Brethren is a great temptation, but still we do not see clearly our permission to go, and the Lord has given us all such perfect peace in staying, and such perfect health, that we are even unwilling to go; we remain, therefore, and wait upon our Lord's love, which we feel assured will be manifested towards us amidst this scene of death; and afterwards we shall see why we remained, more clearly perhaps than now. [24] The caravan they went by suffered the most complicated misery both from the flood and the plague, and never succeeded in prosecuting the journey. _April 13._--The plague has just entered our neighbour's dwelling, where they have collected together nearly thirty persons, not simply their own family. It seems as if a spirit of infatuation had seized them, for instead of making their number as small as possible, they seem to congregate as many together as they can. Oh! what a blessed portion is ours, to have the God of Israel and his unchangeable promises for our sure and abiding place of rest--our little sanctuary unto which we may always resort. Yea, in the secret of his pavilion he will hide us. _April 14._--This is a day of awful visitation. The accounts of deaths yesterday vary from between 1000 and 1500; and to-day, they say, is worse than any, and the increase in the numbers of deaths is exclusive of the immense multitudes who are dying without the city. One of our schoolmasters[25] is gone to Damascus, and has taken with him his little nephew who was boarding with us, so we are indeed now quite alone. In fact, nothing prevents the entire desertion of the city, but the dangers of the way, and the poverty of the inhabitants. [25] He died afterwards--he was the one mentioned in my former Journal as having come from Shiraz.