determining, in my own mind, never again to venture such another entertainment. LETTER XXI. _Prevalent Diseases--Abuse of Stimulants--Medicinal Well--Sorcery--Hydrophobia._ Mequinez. Although the plague is not so common in these states as in Turkey and Egypt, yet it is often brought hither by means of the caravans, and several articles of luxury imported annually by the merchants from Mecca and Medina; and, for want of proper precaution, it is suffered to spread, to desolate, and to stop of its own accord; for the Moors continue obstinately blinded by the same superstitious and absurd notions that are entertained by the Mahometans of the Turkish empire, of its being a punishment occasionally inflicted upon the true believers by their angry Prophet, and that it is incurable; and here I receive on this subject the same tales and romantic accounts that I did during my residence in Egypt in the year 1801. The most prevailing diseases in this country that have come under my observation, are, cutaneous disorders of all kinds, intermittent fevers, those of a putrid, malignant, pestilential kind, and the puerperal fever, which proceeds from the barbarous treatment of lying-in women in this country, as they are kept in small confined rooms, deprived of the benefit of pure air. One day I went to see a very fine young woman, the lady of one of the Xeriffes. The heat of the room was intolerable. After much persuasion, I succeeded in having her removed to a cooler one, and she recovered, contrary to the predictions of the female attendant, who reported the daily changes to a celebrated doctor here. It is wonderful what numbers of young women fall victims to this fever in the course of a year. Besides the above-mentioned complaints, I have observed insanity, epilepsy, spasmodic affections of the face, ruptures of all kinds (which last are produced by their loose kind of trowsers); nervous consumptions, extreme debility, and dropsy, brought on by their indolent manner of living, and the great abuses of violent doses of drastic medicines.