Page:Busbecq, Travels into Turkey (1744).pdf/238

 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.

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