"There is a contradiction in this disorder, difficult to account for; so easy to catch that a bit of wood or cotton can retain it for years, and convey it with all its horrible symptoms. On the contrary, some are proof against the most violent contagion. The wife of Mr. W. was a lady born in the country, and notwithstanding she took more than usual precaution, she caught the infection, without being able to assign any cause. Most of her family and servants immediately left the house, but her husband and her father attended her until she died, having had her infant at the breast to the last moment. No one of them caught the disease. My predecessor, Mr. B., having been forty-one years at Constantinople, had not the least fear of the plague. A few years since, as he was returning from Cyprus, his fellow-passenger fell ill and was put ashore at the Dardanelles. Mr. B. occupied his friend's bed, as it was better than his own, and wore his friend's nightcap. The next morning he went ashore to see him, and found that he had died during the night of the plague. Another time, two of his servants died of the disease in his house; but in neither case did he experience any inconvenience. The Europeans, and more particularly the English, take the usual precautions at the first appearance of the disease, but have little apprehension from it, living in the country in the summer, and in a very different manner from the natives, both as to food and cleanliness. It is a great satisfaction to know that not one English gentleman has died of the plague during the last thirty years. How inferior it is in its ravages to the cholera and the yellow fever, which are not known in this country!" Unhappily, the cholera has become very well known here since, and has proved quite as fatal as the plague. In 1865 the city was decimated by it, some 75,000 dying in two months, a loss of life almost as great as in the great plague seasons of 1812 and 1837. These great epidemics of plague were, however, in some respects more terrible than the cholera, for they continued many months. Life became a burden. The wealthiest often suffered for want of food and clothing, as they remained shut up in their houses for fear of contagion. Those who were forced to go out, dressed in long oil-cloth cloaks, and carefully avoided touching anything. Every one entering a house was fumigated with sulphur, in a sort of sentry-box kept for the purpose at the door. All ties of family and society were broken. But even in these great epidemics very few Europeans died, while in the cholera epidemics there has been no exemption. It is now forty years since the last appearance of plague at Constantinople, and, whatever theorists may say, no one here who remembers the old times has any doubt that its disappearance was due to the strict enforcement of quarantine regulations, which before that time the Turks would not accept.