There is a class of the peasantry of whom a few words must now be said, namely, the lepers. The common diseases of the country are ophthalmia, dysentery, fever, and liver complaints; but on the whole the peasantry are healthy, strongly-built, and of great strength and endurance. They drive the lepers from their villages, and oblige them to resort to the miserable communities which live, supported by charity on the outskirts of great towns. Loathed and neglected, they drag on a miserable existence, and propagate a diseased race--a reproach to the Government, which does nothing to assist or control them. The following notes are obtained from the best possible authority--namely, from Dr. Chaplin, at Jerusalem: Leprosy appears to be a mysterious disease, the origin of which doctors do not know. It is not peculiar to one nation--Norwegians, Italians, Spaniards, Hindoos, suffer from it, as well as Syrians. It is not caused by food, not seemingly due to climate, and temperature has no connection with it. It is doubtful whether it is contagious or hereditary. One curious fact is that townsmen do not suffer from it, though the lepers live close to the towns. From almost every village a few lepers come to the towns, and notably from the Christian village of Râm-Allah. The ordinary tubercular leprosy is due to the presence of _bacteria_ in the tubercles, and the disease works out from within, not inwards from without. It appears not to be the same disease described in Leviticus, though the white leprosy--a spot deeper than the skin, with white hairs (Levit. xiii. 3)--is still found in Palestine. The name leprosy is derived from El Burs, a corruption of the Hebrew term used for the disease. No cure is as yet known for tubercular leprosy, for the reason of the presence of the microscopic parasites is not yet discovered. The prevention of this plague, which is now rather on the increase in Palestine, seems to be possible, if habits of greater cleanliness and morality, with more comfort and better food, could be introduced among the peasantry, and if at the same time strict laws were enforced for secluding the lepers in asylums. This dreadful plague does not become manifest before the age of twelve, nor later than forty-five. The patients suffer pain at first, and, in later stages, much distress; their physical strength and animal life dies out, and they are, in their own words, “like oxen,” without feeling or intellectual power, scarcely conscious of the outer world; their voices become changed to a feeble whine, husky and querulous; their joints and features waste away, and swelling and black discolouration ensue. The flesh decays, until the appearance of an advanced case is ghastly in the extreme; and a raw wound may be burnt with an iron in their bodies, producing only a slightly pleasing sensation. They die finally of leprosy.