I could pile anecdote on anecdote upon the same melancholy theme, but my heart sickens as I record them; and that which I have just narrated will sufficiently demonstrate the improbability of this terrific scourge ever being expelled the country by the precautionary measures of the natives. On the subject of the plague the Turks appear to possess neither prudence nor judgment. Their belief in predestination deepens their natural want of energy; and thus the malady is suffered to run its deadly course almost unchecked, and to sweep off its thousands yearly, amid pangs at which humanity shudders. Another circumstance which must tend to perpetuate the pestilence in the East, exists in the fact that, when the local authorities have ascertained the existence of plague in a dwelling, the house becomes what is termed “compromised;” and after the family of the smitten has been ejected, and sent to the mountains, it is painted throughout its whole interior, cleansed, and fumigated; a process which, owing to the risk incurred by the individuals employed in the work, and the species of quarantaine to which they are subjected during its continuance, is sufficiently expensive to deter the poorer portions of the population from declaring the presence of the disease in their families; as, combined with their forty days of exile in the mountains, during which time they are, of course, unable to earn any thing for the future support of the survivors, it subjects them to want and misery, which they seek to evade by running a greater, but, as they fondly hope, less certain risk. They trust to their _felech_, or constellation, that the infection will not spread, and are undoubtedly, in many cases, the more readily induced to do this, that they have at least the melancholy satisfaction of closing the eyes of their dead, and of seeing them expire amid their “household gods;” instead of knowing that their last hour was one of despairing abandonment, as well as of acute agony; and having to search for their bodies in the desolate spots to which their wretchedness might have driven them. It has been ascertained that atmospherical changes have no influence on the plague. It rages amid the snow-storm as virulently as beneath the scorching suns of summer. Diet does not affect it—The street-porter, living upon black bread, and fruit frequently immature, and the Effendi, whose tray is spread with culinary delicacies, are alike liable to be smitten.