THE PLAGUE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
In 1837 I was a resident in Galata, one of the faubourgs of Constantinople,sufficiently near the scenes of death caused by the ravages ofthe plague to be thoroughly acquainted with them, and yet to be separatedfrom the Turkish part of the population of that immense city.It is not material to the present sketch to dwell upon the subject of myprevious life, or the causes which had induced me to visit the capital ofthe East at such a period of mortality; and I will therefore only add,that circumstances of a peculiarly painful nature obliged me to locatemyself in Galata, where there were none to sympathize in my feelings,or any one with whom I could even exchange more than a word of conversation.I saw none but the widowed owner of the house in which Ihad a chamber, her daughter Aleukâ, and Petraki, her little son.
While the epidemic raged, we four endeavored to keep up a rigidquarantine. Each recommended to the other the strictest observance ofour mutual agreement not to receive any thing from without doors, exceptthe necessaries of life; and whenever we left the house, which wasto be as seldom as possible, not to come in contact with any one. WheneverI went out I invariably wore an oil-cloth cloak, and by the aid ofmy cane prevented the dogs of the streets, which are there so numerous,from rubbing against me. If I visited any one, which I seldom did, Ialways sat on a bench or chair to prevent conveying or receiving contagion;and before even entering the house, I always underwent thepreparation of being smoked in a box, which during the prevalence ofthe plague is placed near its entrance for that purpose. These boxeswere some eight feet high by three square, the platform on which thefeet rested elevated about a foot above the earth, so as to admit under ita dish containing the ingredients of the prophylactic, and a hole in thedoor to let the face out during the smoking of the clothes and body.We procured our daily supply of provisions from a Bak-kal, a retailgrocer, whose shop was directly under our front window; an itinerantEkmekjer, or bread-man, brought our bread to the door; our vegetableswere procured from a gardener close by, and our water we drew from a cistern under the house: in fine, our food was either smoked or saturatedbefore we touched it, and every possible precaution observed to cut ourlittle family off from the dreadful scourge, ‘the pestilence which walkethin darkness and the destruction which wasteth at noon day.’ The motherand daughter throughout the day spun silk, knitted woolen suits, orembroidered kerchiefs for head dresses, called in Romaic fakiolee, andeven to a late hour of the night they frequently continued the same employment,until the plague prevented the sale of their handiwork, andtheir materials were all used up. All day long they would sit uponthe sofa of their little apartment, facing the street, and while their handstoiled for a subsistence, the widow’s daughter hummed a plaintive air,or occasionally broke the silence by conversing with her mother. Theson was yet too young to be of assistance to his desolate mother andsister, and except when he said his letters to them, spent the day in idleness.As to my own employment, the dull period of time passed withthem was a blank in my existence; and yet, such is the influence ofpast penury an