Polynesian., 1850-02-09
and then died QUIT was fondIy hoped for

8 5O.
and then died Quit was fondIy hoped for
ever.
Six years elapsed.
During this period the pestilence paused,
strangely, on the western skirts of Europe
No quarantine was enforced; no obstacle was
opposed to the streams of human intercourse
flowing westward from the infected places
The plague seemed to be exhausted, and the
alarm which its proximity had excited soon
ceased, and was forgotten. In the summer
of 1929 hagain gave signs of its existence
in unaba,ed malignity on the western bound
ary of Europe il broke at Orenburg, town
on the Tartar frontier, 400 miles up the river
Oural, which extends nOrthward from the
Caspian Sea, whose shores the disease had
ravaged in 1923 In Orenburg, and in
the surrounding province, a tenth of the in
habitants were seized; and about a-fourth Of
the smitten persisted. This second warning
renewed for moment the forgotten fears of
the Europeans. But no measures were taken
to resist the impending pestilence.
With the subsdence of the disease during
the winter, the apathy of Europe returned
No steps were taken to abate the filth and
misery of their overcrowded towns. Their
grave-yards, their slaughter-houses, their
reeking cesspools, still loaded with putrd
steam the stagnant air; and their squalid
populations, with blood already half corrupt
and fevered, were suffered to lie sfrewn in
the path Of the epidemic, like prey in the
path of a lion.
Next year, in 1880, during the heats of
July, the smoldering pestilence broke out
again in Persia; again crept along the
western shore of the Caspian, injecting Sa-
liany at the mouth Of the Kur, Aptrachan
at the mouth of the Volga, and many inter-
mediate towns. But this time il spread
westward along the valley of the Kur to
Tiflis, which it reached and ravished within
a month. II also ran westward into Cau-
casia along the rivers Terek and Kuma-
And from Astrachan it ran in q days 400
miles up the Volga to Saratoff, where it de-
stroyed within month 2, 367 persons. From
Saratof it continued rapidly to ascend the
Volg2 toward Moscow, where next month
september IA, 1880, two or three cases
were reported.
The Emperor Of Russia now became
alarmed. He threw Gordon sanitaire round
Moscow, established strict quarantine at
its gates, and enjoined careful isolation of
the sick. In spite of these measures the
disease spread rapidly, attacking chiefly the
squalid inhabitants of low-lying triangular
island, formed by two branches Of the river,
connected by a'canal Here, in six weeks,
above 800 persisted. In the height of the
panic, while the town was strictly isolated,
and the disease universally believed to be
contagious, the Emperor Nicholas came
himself to Moscow, to raise the spirits of
his subjects, by showing himself ready to
partake their danger. 1t is impossible not
to admire the personal galIantry of such con-
duct 1t does not, however, appear that the
power Of the Autocrat was exerted TO cleanse
the Augear filth Of which he boldly braved
the perilous effects. The disease continued
to ascend to the northwest, spreading from
the Caspian to the Baltic at such a rate
as would have infected all EuropdDin
three months. Considerable apprehensions
prevailed /; but still, in our great cities, the
dead were buried as usual amid the living
sill men were content to live surrounded by
the offal Of slaughter-houses and then, as
now, they continued to breathe the exhala-
tions Of black bitches, of open gully-holes.
and Of noisome tanks, brimmiDg with accu-
mulated ordure.
The results oftheir supiness soon appeared.
While the Cholera was thus ascending the
Volga to Moscow, and thence to Petersburg
and the shores of the Baltic, it also spread
down the river Don to the borders of the
Black Sea, reaching Odessa and the mouth
of the Danube soon after its outbreak in
Moscow. The pestilence now made its way
across the continent by several parallel
streams Along the valley of the Danube
it spread to Vienna, which it reached in
August, 1881 Along the shores of the
Baltic, it crept from Petersburg by way of
Riga and Stettin to Berlin, where also it ap-
peared in 1881. An intermediate stream
reached Warsaw and Cracow in the same
year, and ravaged many towns Of Poland.
The Polish army are said to have taken the
disease during a battle with the Russians, as
the Turks had previously become infected
during a contest with the Persians.
From these principal streams that infec-
tion was diffilsed along the roads and rivers
throughout Austria, Hungary, and GAmany.
ill, among other places, it reached Ham
burg in the autumn OF 1881.
Reverting for a moment TO the EAST, we
find Egypt attacked in the same year, (le3l)
the disease having been brought to Caro- by
the Pilgrims returning from Mecca, which
had itself been infected by worsblppe ar
irving from the tainted ports of Persia and
India. At Mecca, 10000 Of the Pilgrims
persisted in four days; and at Cairo the NOR
tality was so terrible that even the physicians
perished, and the hospitals were filled with
shrieking wretches dying without aid. Con-
stantinople had already, two months earlier,
been entered by pestiential stream, branch
ing southwark from that which we have al
ready traced along the shores Of the Black
Sea and up the valley of the Danube. ln
its westward progress through Europe to the
point at which we left it, (Hamburg,) the
pest disseminated its virus to these and
many other towns which our limits oblige US
TO pass unnoticed