With such preventives as the sole protection against the cholera it is no wonder that the plague spread like wildfire. It was no respecter of persons—a dowager in the palace, a prince of Cambodia, a wealthy Hindu merchant were victims like the most wretched natives. The mortality was so inclusive that in many a house there were more dead than living; and in some instances the remnant of a family would abandon the house with its horde of corpses. Many of the mission servants and members of their families were attacked, and some of these sent in great haste for Dr. House. From early morning, all through the day, far into the night he visited the sick. Terrifying as the plague itself was, the fear of death was almost eclipsed by the revolting disposal of the dead: “You know it is the Siamese custom to burn their dead, but so fearfully did deaths multiply that a shorter mode of disposal was resorted to, and multitudes of corpses were thrown without ceremony, as you would throw the carcass of a dog into the river. These dead bodies could be seen any day floating back and forth with the tide before our doors, in all stages of putrefaction—on some of them crows perched, picking away at their horrid feast. “Go where you would through the streets, we would meet men bearing away the dead, hastily tied up in a coarse mat. The Siamese make loud lamentation at the moment of the death of friends, and as one would pass along it was no uncommon thing to hear the voice of wailing from this house and that. Once on my way to see a patient, the voice of one crying in great distress induced me to enter the little bamboo dwelling, whence the cry proceeded; and there on the mat-covered platform of a gambler’s shop (for such it was) sat a middle-aged Chinaman with his head against the wall, sobbing at a piteous rate. He took no notice of my entrance; but, telling his only comrade that I was a doctor, I stepped up to him to feel his pulse, but he was pulseless and his limbs cold as stone—the hand of death was upon him. And I went on my way leaving him all heedless of my coming, crying bitterly as before.