When tempestuous Weather kept me from Sea, I delighted myself in finding out strange and unusual Plants at Land. I would sometimes go a-foot all ever the Island, having a young _Franciscan_ Monk in my Company, a jolly Fellow, but very Fat, and not used to travel on Foot. I took him out of a Monastry at _Pera_, to be my Partner in my Walks; he was so corpulent and pursy, that when I went on a-pace to catch myself a Heat, he would follow me at a Distance panting and blowing, with these Words in his Mouth, What need all this haste? Whom do we run from, or whom do we pursue? What are we Carriers or Posts that must make speed to deliver some important Letters? Thus he mutter’d, till the very Sweat pierced through all his Cloaths. In fine, when we came back to our Lodgings, he threw himself upon his Bed, wofully complaining, and crying out, he was undone: What Injury have I done, said he, that you thus hurry on to destroy me? And, in this fretting Posture, we had much ado to persuade him to eat a bit of Dinner. Now and then, some Friends visited from _Constantinople_, and from _Pera_; yea, and some _Germans_ also of _Holy_’s own Family; of whom when I asked whether the Plague was abated? Mightily, said they. How many then die in a Day? Scarce Five Hundred, said they. Good God! quoth I, call you that to abate? when then doth it rage? They replied, when about a Thousand or Twelve Hundred die in a Day. The _Turks_ entertain this Opinion concerning the Pestilence, that every Man’s Destiny is written by God in his Forehead; so that ’tis a foolish thing in them, to think to decline or avoid it. This Opinion makes them fearless of the Plague, but not secure from it: So that, as soon as any Man dies of the Pestilence, they will take off their Cloaths, yet sweaty, and Linnen, and rub their Faces with them. If it be the Will of God, say they, that I shall die this way, it will most certainly come to pass; if not, it will not hurt me. Thus a large Field is open for Infection; so that whole Families are sometimes swept away by that Disease. Whilst I abode in these Islands, I got acquaintance with one _Metrophanes_, a _Metropolitan_ who presided over a Monastry in _Chalcis_, one of those Islands. He was a Learned and a Vertuous Man, very desirous of an Agreement between the _Latin_ and the _Greek_ Churches; so that he differed from the Humour of the rest of the _Grecians_, who esteem the _Latins_ as Men of an impure and profane Sect. So much doth every Man abound in his own Sense!