My first general advice to a traveller is this, to remember well what was the state of his constitution before he visited these countries, and what his complaints were, if he had any; for fear very frequently seizes us upon the first sight of the many and sudden deaths we see upon our first arrival, and our spirits are so lowered by perpetual perspiration, and our nerves so relaxed, that we are apt to mistake the ordinary symptoms of a disease, familiar to us in our own country, for the approach of one of these terrible distempers that are to hurry us in a few hours into eternity. This has a bad effect in the very slightest disorders; so that it hath become proverbial--If you think you shall die, you shall die. If a traveller finds, that he is as well after having been some time in this country as he was before entering it, his best way is to make no innovation in his regimen, further than in abating something in the quantity. But if he is of a tender constitution, he cannot act more wisely than to follow implicitly the regimen of sober, healthy people of the country, without arguing upon European notions, or substituting what we consider as succedaneums to what we see used on the spot. All spirits are to be avoided; even bark is better in water than in wine. The stomach, being relaxed by profuse perspiration, needs something to strengthen, but not inflame, and enable it to perform digestion. For this reason (instinct we should call it, if speaking of beasts) the natives of all eastern countries season every species of food, even the simplest, and mildest, rice, so much with spices, especially pepper, as absolutely to blister a European palate. These powerful antiseptics Providence has planted in these countries for this use; and the natives have, from the earliest times, had recourse to them in proportion to the quantity that they can procure. And hence, in these dangerous climates, the natives are as healthy as we are in our northern ones. Travellers in Arabia are disgusted at this seemingly inflammatory food; and nothing is more common than to hear them say that they are afraid these quantities of spices will give them a fever. But did they ever feel themselves heated by ever so great a quantity of black pepper? Spirits they think, substituted to this, answer the same purpose. But does not the heat of your skin, the violent pain in your head, while the spirits are filtering through the vessels of your brains, shew the difference? and when did any ever feel a like sensation from black pepper, or any pepper ate to excess in every meal?