This celebrated port, from which insufferable heat and a pestilential atmosphere banish the whole population during summer, is at all times excessively insalubrious, all strangers who settle there dying in the course of a few years, and the inhabitants themselves being already old at thirty. The few persons who remain to keep guard over the city during summer, at the risk of their lives, are relieved every ten days; during which they suffer sufficiently from the heat, the deluges of rain, and the black and furious tempests which plough up the waters of the gulf, and blow with irresistible fury along the coast. Though the eve of the season of death was drawing near, Chardin found the inhabitants of Bander in a gay humour, feasting, drinking, and elevating their sentiments and rejoicing their hearts with the heroic songs of Firdoosi. Into these amusements our traveller entered with all his heart—the time flew by rapidly—the advent of fever and death was come—and the ship which he expected from Surat had not yet arrived. Talents and experience are not always accompanied by prudence. Chardin saw the whole population deserting the city; yet he lingered, detained by the _auri sacra fames_, until far in the month of May, and until, in fact, the seeds of a malignant fever had been sown in his constitution. Those uneasy sensations which are generally the forerunners of sickness and death, united with the representations of the physicians, at length induced him to quit the place, his attendants being already ill; but he had not proceeded many leagues before a giddiness in the head and general debility of body informed him that he had remained somewhat too long at Bander. Arriving on the 24th of May at Tangnedelan, a place where there was not a single human being to be found, he became delirious, and at last fell into a fit from which his attendants had much difficulty in recovering him. There happened, by great good fortune, to be a French surgeon in his suite. This surgeon, who was an able man in his profession, not only took all possible care of our traveller during his moments of delirium, but, what was of infinitely greater importance, had the good sense to hurry his departure from those deserted and fatal regions, procuring from the neighbouring villages eight men, who carried him in a litter made with canes and branches of trees to Lâr. As soon as they had reached this city, Chardin sent for the governor’s physician, who, understanding that he was the shah’s merchant, came to him immediately. Our traveller was by this time so weak that he could scarcely describe his feelings; and, as well as the French surgeon, began to believe that his life was near its close. The Persian Esculapius, however, who discovered the nature of the disorder at a glance, assured him it was a mere trifle; that he needed by no means be uneasy; and that, in fact, he would, with God’s blessing, restore him to health that very day, nay, in a very few hours.