Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/282

 It came from Ceylon, and broke out with dreadful severity in 1817; especially in what we call Bengal, which is 100 miles around the Presidency; since which time, it has raged partially in Calcutta, and all the Lower Provinces, also in the higher; but in the Central Provinces, in which Allahabad is situated, it is very rare, only one case of cholera having occurred during the last two years at this station.

At Berhampore it is dreadfully prevalent; the 48th regiment quitted this a short time ago by the river, and lost nine men at that place. No diet, no care, can avail. Our medical man said, "I can compare it to nothing but a flash of lightning; its effects are instantaneous; the nerves from the first moment are powerless, dull, and torpid."

If I were to be seized with it to-morrow, I should only strive to resign myself quietly to my fate, feeling, that to strive against the malady is hopeless: in fever you have hope, in cholera scarcely a shadow of it; it is better not indulged; but the disease is so powerful it dulls the senses,—mercifully dulls them.

The cholera is raging at Malda; all the public works are stopped in consequence.

18th.—The thermantidote has been put up in our verandah. The rooms are ten degrees cooler than when we had only tattīs. For the first time I have been laid up with a strong attack of rheumatism and lumbago. My medical man says, "The thermantidote pours forth such a volume of cold air, that if you have fallen asleep near it, it has caused all these aches and pains. 'Nulla rosa senza spine.'"

THE ARABIAN LEPROSY (KOOSTUM).

Happily this dreadful disease is not as common as the other forms of leprosy: but once I beheld a dreadful specimen of its virulence; going into the verandah at 7, where the carpenters were all at work,a close and most disagreeable effluvium annoyed me—the cause could not be discovered.

Just beyond, in the garden, lay a lump under a black blanket. "What is this?" said Lutchman, the carpenter, "the smell pro