plague, on this side of the river alone, in little more than one
fortnight, all agree in making it about 7000. The poor inhabitants
know not what to do: if they remain in the city, they die of the
plague; if they leave it, they fall into the hands of the Arabs, who
strip them, or they are exposed to the effects of an inundation of the
river Tigris, which has now overflown the whole country around Bagdad,
and destroyed, they say, 2000 houses on the other side of the river,
but I think this must be exaggerated; the misery of this place,
however, is now beyond expression, and may yet be expected to be much
greater. Dreadful as the outward circumstances of this people are,
their moral condition is infinitely worse; nor does there seem to be a
ray of light amidst it all. The Mohammedans look on those who die of
the plague as martyrs, and when they die there is no wailing made for
them; so that amidst all these desolations there is a stillness, that
when one knows the cause is very frightful. The Lord enables us to
feel the blessedness of the 91st Psalm, at least of the portion of
those to whom that Psalm pertains; and we have, amidst all these very
trying circumstances, a peace that passeth understanding. We feel
indeed that we owe it to our Lord's love to be careful for nothing,
neither to run or make haste as others, but to stand still and see the
salvation of our God.
There was a curious conversation going on last night, among some
Mohammedans, outside our window, relative to the plague, which they
said was an especial judgment on them and the Jews, but from which
Christ would deliver the Nazarenes, and in all these calamities, it is
remarkable how doubly heavy, they fall on these two classes. Feelings
like these, and others that we know exist, make us clear to stay where
we are in the midst of these judgments, trying as they are to natural
feeling. That which comes to the ungodly _as judgments_, comes to the
child of God, like the chariot of fire to Elijah. From these
visitations as judgments, we have an especial promise of protection,
and we trust in the midst of them some good may spring up; at all
events, we feel that we shall have quite met our dear Lord's mind in
giving this people a last opportunity of hearing, ere their house is
left unto them desolate.
_April 12._--I have just taken leave of the kind T.'s. The accounts of
the dead are truly terrific; they say the day before yesterday 1200
died, and yesterday Major T.'s man of business obtained a receipt to
the amount of 1040 on this side of the river. If this statement can
be relied on, the mortality, within and without the city, must be
truly appalling, and should it not please the Lord soon to stay the
destroying Angel's hand, the whole country must become one wide
waste. Some very kind Armenians[24] have offered to provide what is
necessary for our journey to Damascus, if we will go with them. The
possibility of meeting our dear Brethren is a great temptation, but
still we do not see clearly our permission to go, and the Lord has
given us all such perfect peace in staying, and such perfect health,
that we are even unwilling to go; we remain, therefore, and wait upon
our Lord's love, which we feel assured will be manifested towards us
amidst this scene of death; and afterwards we shall see why we
remained, more clearly perhaps than now.
[24] The caravan they went by suffered the most complicated
misery both from the flood and the plague, and never succeeded in
prosecuting the journey.
_April 13._--The plague has just entered our neighbour's dwelling,
where they have collected together nearly thirty persons, not simply
their own family. It seems as if a spirit of infatuation had seized
them, for instead of making their number as small as possible, they
seem to congregate as many together as they can.
Oh! what a blessed portion is ours, to have the God of Israel and his
unchangeable promises for our sure and abiding place of rest--our
little sanctuary unto which we may always resort. Yea, in the secret
of his pavilion he will hide us.
_April 14._--This is a day of awful visitation. The accounts of deaths
yesterday vary from between 1000 and 1500; and to-day, they say, is
worse than any, and the increase in the numbers of deaths is exclusive
of the immense multitudes who are dying without the city. One of our
schoolmasters[25] is gone to Damascus, and has taken with him his
little nephew who was boarding with us, so we are indeed now quite
alone. In fact, nothing prevents the entire desertion of the city, but
the dangers of the way, and the poverty of the inhabitants.
[25] He died afterwards--he was the one mentioned in my
former Journal as having come from Shiraz.
_April 15._--The accounts of the mortality yesterday still more
alarming--1800 deaths in the city. There was great danger of the
bodies being left in the houses, and the inhabitants flying and
leaving them unburied, but by great exertions on the part of some
young men in one quarter of the town to bury the dead there, others
have been stimulated in other quarters to similar exertions, and last
night all were buried. Our Moolah has just been here; he says he has
bought winding sheets for himself, his brother, and his mother.[26] He
says that yesterday he was in the Jew's quarter, and only met one
person, and that was a woman, who, when she saw him, ran in and locked
the door. Meat, for some days, or any thing else from without, we have
been unable to get. Water alone we have obtained. But, to-day, even
that we cannot get at any price; every waterman you stop, answers he
is carrying it to wash the bodies of the dead.
[26] Both he and his brother died.
_April 16._--The accounts of yesterday are worse than any day, and an
Armenian girl, who has been here this morning, said she saw, in a
distance of about 600 yards, fifty dead bodies carrying to burial. The
son of Gaspar Khan, our next neighbour, is dead. Two have been carried
out from a little passage opposite our house to-day, where two more
are ill. All you see passing have a little bunch of herbs, or a rose,
or an onion to smell to, and yet as to real measures of precaution
there has not been one step taken; not even contact avoided, and the
most unrestrained intercourse goes on in every direction, so that
nothing but the Lord's arm shortening it, can prevent the entire
desolation of the whole province. The population of Bagdad cannot
exceed 80,000, and of this number more than half have fled,[27] so
that the mortality of 2000 a-day is going on among considerably less
than 40,000 people. But the Lord tells us, when we hear or see these
things, not to have our hearts troubled, for our redemption draweth
nigh; and we believe it, and accept it as a sweet drop in the bitter
cup that is now drinking to the very dregs by so many about us; and
which, but for this expectation, would bow down the stoutest heart.
[27] Most of them were driven back by the increase of the
waters without.
One of Major T.'s servants has just been here, who says the city is a
perfect desert, only peopled by the dead, the bearers of the dead, and
the water carriers. Our household are all in perfect health, thanks be
to our loving Shepherd's care.
_April 17._--To-day, as yesterday, we have heard nothing as to
numbers. The accounts are very contradictory; some saying that there
is very little plague, others, that it is heavier than any day; so
that probably, in some parts of the city, it is very severe, and in
others lighter.
An Armenian told the schoolmaster that almost every one you meet is
carrying cotton and things for the interment of the dead. We are
left almost alone in our own neighbourhood, all having fled in one
direction or another; we have been, however, all preserved in health,
to the praise of the Keeper of Israel.
Surely every principle of dissolution is operating in the midst of the
Ottoman, and Persian empires. Plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars,
all mark that the days of the Lord's coming are at hand, and this is
our hope--on this our eyes and hearts rest as the time of repose, when
all these trials shall cease, and the saints shall possess the
kingdom.
_April 18._--To-day the accounts are truly distressing. In the family
of one of our little boys, consisting of six, four are laid down with
the plague, father, mother, one son, and one daughter--only one son
and a daughter remaining. Immense numbers of families will be
altogether swept away, and many thousand of fatherless and motherless
children left when this heavy judgment of God ceases. It is now become
useless to attempt obtaining accurate accounts about numbers.
_April 19._--Still heavy, heavy news. The Moolah has called to give us
an account of the city. He says it now stands stationary at between
1,500 and 2,000 a-day, and has been so for a fortnight. What a mass of
mortality! Among the Pasha's soldiers, he says they have lost, in some
of the regiments, above 500 out of 700.--And in the towns and villages
without, the report is, that it is as bad or worse than within the
city.
_April 20._--The plague much the same. Among the Armenians nine were
buried yesterday, and seven to-day. There are not left in the city
more than 400, and now there is the plague in every third or fourth
house. The water also is increasing, so that a little more will
inundate the whole city on this side the river, as it has on the
other, to the inexpressible additional misery of the poor people. The
caravan which left for Damascus can neither advance nor return on
account of the water. Yesterday four dead were carried out from the
little passage opposite our house, making in all 14 dead from eight
houses, and there are others now lying ill.
_April 21._--To-day the accounts of the plague are rather more
favourable, though another has been carried out from the passage
opposite us, and there are some ill in three houses adjoining ours.
The river has burst into the cellars of the Residency, and is within a
foot of inundating the whole city.
_April 22._--Having had occasion to-day to go out to the Residency, to
endeavour to save some things from the water, which has come into all
the cellars, in every way I was overwhelmed with the awful state of
the city, and at the difficulty of obtaining help of any kind at any
price. The servant of Major T----, who is left in charge of the house,
told me he had applied in every direction, but could get no one to
help him; one had a wife dead or dying, another a mother, another was
employed in carrying water for the dead, and on our way, we saw the
Court of the Meshid or Mosque full of graves; and no longer finding
room there, they were burying the dead in the public road. When in
want of water, I think we shall be obliged to go to the river and
fetch it for ourselves, as a water-carrier is hardly now to be seen,
except when followed by a man forcing him to carry water to some house
where there is death. Amidst all, the Lord lets not his destroying
angels enter our dwelling; though tens of thousands are falling around
us, we are all, by his grace and holy keeping, well. The business of
death is now come to that height, that people seem to take their
nearest relations, and bring them for interment with as much
indifference as they would transact the most ordinary business.
_April 23._--The plague not decreasing; two more were brought out
to-day from the passage opposite to us, making seventeen from eight
houses near us. The mother of the Seyd, who owns our house, has been
buried in her house, as no one could be found to bury her. Another
most affecting instance has just occurred. A little girl of about
twelve years old was seen carrying an infant in her arms, and being
asked whose it was, she said, she did not know, but had found it in
the road, having heard that both its parents were dead. Water now is
not to be had for money; yet even in these times Israel's pillar has
its bright side to Israel. These things must come to pass; but when we
see these signs, we must remember that our redemption draweth nigh;
and the Lord will be a little sanctuary for us, let him send however
sore judgments on the earth.
_April 24._--The plague still raging with most destructive violence;
the two servants in our next neighbour's house are both dead, and two
horses left, I fear, to starve. A poor Armenian woman has just been
here, to beg a little sugar for a little infant she picked up in the
street this morning; and she says, another neighbour of her's picked
up two more. They have just been digging graves beside our house.
Almost all the cotton is consumed, so that persons are wandering
all over the city to find some, for burying their dead. Water not
to be had at any price, nor a water-carrier to be seen. Oh, what
heart-rending scenes sin has introduced into the world! Oh, when will
the Lord come to put an end to these scenes of disorder, physical as
well as moral? In one short month, not less than 30,000 souls have
passed from time to eternity in this city, and yet, even now, no
diminution apparently of deaths. Surely the judgment of the Lord is
on this land? One more taken from the little passage opposite, making
nineteen from the eight houses.
_April 25._--To-day, three more from the same passage, making
twenty-one from these houses. Such a disease I never heard of or
witnessed; certainly not more than one in twenty recovers; every one
attacked seems to die.
This has been a heart-rending day. The accounts from the Residency,
and the falling of a wall, undermined by the water, obliged me to go
out, and I found nothing but signs of death and desolation; hardly
a soul in the streets, unless such as were carrying the dead, or
themselves affected with plague, and at a number of doors, and in the
lanes, bundles of clothes that had been taken from the dead, and put
out. The Court of the Mosque was shut, having no place left for
burying, and graves were digging in every direction in the roads, and
in the unoccupied stables about the city. The water also has increased
so much as to be within a few inches of inundating the city. Should
this further calamity come on this side, as it has on the other, the
height of human misery will be near its climax, for where they will
then bury their dead I know not. There seems no diminution in the
plague yet, that we can discern. Two of the men we had helping to take
Major T----'s things from the water are attacked; one of them is the
fourth from a house, consisting of six. The remaining servant of Mr.
T---- had intelligence brought while I was there, that his aunt was
dead, which, he says, is the eighth near relation he has lost.
Some of the Mohammedans, our neighbours, were sitting under our
windows last evening, and were observing, that while two or three had
been taken from every house, we only had remained free. And this is of
the Lord's marvellous love. We consist of thirteen, including the
schoolmaster's family, and the Lord has given his destroying angel
charge to pass over our door.
The Pasha has sent to desire, that he might have Major T----'s yacht
drawn up near the Seroy or Palace to go into, in case the water should
increase; and when the man was sent for, who had the charge of the
vessel, he with another had run away, three were dead, and only one
remained. These are surely the days of visitation for the pride of
Edom. The man who sold cotton for burying the dead, the price of which
he raised from 45 to 95 piastres, and who lived only two doors from
us, died yesterday. There is no more cotton left in the city, and they
now bury the dead in their clothes. The price of soap is raised four
times higher than usual. I have been enabled, by the Lord's goodness,
to get all our water-jars filled, though at twenty times the usual
price. The bodies of persons of considerable wealth are now just put
on the back of a donkey, or a mule, and carried away to be buried,
accompanied by one servant. We have also much anxiety about the people
of the Damascus-caravan, of which we can hear no tidings, whether or
not they have been swallowed up by the inundation. Whether they have
been able to retreat to some eminence, or what is become of them we
know not. The poor women who have taken charge of the two poor little
infants have sent to us for food for them, as in these countries they
have no idea of bringing up children by hand. It may be to be
instrumental in saving some of these poor little infants, and in
helping the orphans that remain, that the Lord has allowed us to stay
here. They are all Mohammedan children.
_April 26._--For many days we have been unable to obtain any account
of the number of deaths; but the _Chaoush_ of Major T---- has been
with the Pasha this morning, who is in the greatest possible state of
alarm, wishing to go, but not knowing how. One of his officers, whose
business it is to inquire about the number of deaths daily, reported
that it had reached 5,000, but yesterday was 3,000, and to-day less.
Enormous as the mortality has been, I cannot but think this beyond the
truth; yet it must be remembered, that the inundation kept immense
masses of poor thronged together in the city, who, but for this, would
have all fled in one direction or another.
The accounts are heart-rending of little children left in the
streets; five were left yesterday, a poor woman told us, near the
Residency, and others in different directions. If the wrath of God is
pouring out on the mystical Babylon, as it is on this province of the
literal Babylon; the two antichrists are beginning to draw near their
end. But for the presence of the Lord in our dwelling, as its light
and joy, what a place would this be to be alone in now; but with Him,
even this is better than the garden of Eden. These are invaluable
situations for the experience of God's loving distinguishing care, and
here we realize our pilgrim state much better than in the quiet of
England, with all its external apparent security.
The utmost number of daily deaths I heard of at Tabreez were 400, and
here it is said to be 4,000, and yet the population certainly is not
double. In going out to speak with a servant of Major T----, I saw a
very decently dressed female lying in a dying state of plague at our
door quite senseless; it is almost more than the heart can bear. Yet,
that the Lord will even from these scenes prepare ways for the
establishment of his truth, I feel fully assured, and this supports
us. A north wind has regularly blown for these four days past, so that
we hope the water will not again increase. Oh, may our Father of his
infinite mercy take away these heavy heavy judgments, and make their
present measure instrumental to the advancement of his kingdom. The
Soochee Bashee, an officer of police, has just been here, and tells
us, that the Pasha proposes removing to near Coote, a village on the
Tigris, half way between this and Bussorah. At any other time, this
would tend to most fearful convulsions within the city; but in the
present state of things, perhaps, all may remain quiet, without a
governor. When the plague, that now desolates the city ceases, we know
not what may happen; but this we do know, that the love of our Father,
and his gracious providence, will be magnified by all events, and that
we shall yet praise him more and more. It seems to me more than
probable that the Pasha does not intend to return. By the plague he
has lost half his soldiers, and a great number of his Georgian slaves,
who are his personal attached friends; he may now remove without
obstruction perhaps, from any one, or the possibility of any
communication being made to his enemies to intercept him; but time
only will show; however this may be, it is certain that should the
plague cease to-morrow, the city is in such a state, that no
resistance could be made for one moment to any enemy. How invaluable
the past proofs of the Lord's loving kindness and tender mercies are
at such times, the remembrance of him from the Hill Mizar of the
Hermonites. In going along the streets to-day, I saw several poor
sufferers labouring under the plague; and a number of places, where
clothes had been brought out and burnt.
Our anxieties have been greatly increased by the illness of our dear
little baby; but our unerring Physician has restored her to us to-day,
we trust in a measure which promises amendment.
_April 27._--To-day all thoughts are turned from the plague to the
inundation, which from the falling of a portion of the city wall on
the north-west side last night, let the water in full stream into the
city. The Jews' quarter is inundated, and 200 houses fell there last
night: we are hourly expecting to hear, that every part of the city is
overflowed. A part also of the wall of the citadel is fallen. And, in
fact, such is the structure of the houses, that if the water remains
near the foundations long, the city must become a mass of ruins. The
mortar they use in building is very like plaister of Paris, which sets
very hard, and does very well when all is dry; but as soon as ever
water is applied, it all crumbles to powder; and in building walls of
four or five feet thick, they have only an outside casing of brick
work thus cemented, and within it is filled up with dust and rubbish,
so that what seems strong enough in appearance to bear any thing, soon
moulders away, and by its own weight accelerates its ruin. It must be
many many years, if ever, before the city can recover. But it seems
to me, that this seat of Mohammedan glory, and of its proudest
recollections, has received its death-warrant from the hand of the
Lord. This inundation has not only ruined an immense number of houses
in the city, and been the cause of tens of thousands dying of the
plague, but the whole harvest is destroyed. The barley, which was just
ready to be reaped, is utterly gone, and every other kind of corn must
likewise be ruined, so that for 30 miles all round Bagdad, not a grain
of corn can be collected this year, and perhaps, if all was quiet this
might be of no consequence, for from Mosul and Kourdistan it might
easily come; but this will be prevented by the enemies of the Pasha
who surround us. The poor are beginning to feel immense difficulty in
the city, for all the shops are shut, and there is a great scarcity of
wood for firing; and should the water now cause a general inundation
of the whole city, the heart sickens at the contemplation of the
scenes that must follow; for the houses of the poor are nothing but
mud, scarcely one of which will be left standing.
For ourselves personally, the Lord has allowed us great peace, and
assured confidence in his loving care, and in the truth of his
promise, that our bread and our water shall be sure; but certainly
nothing but the service of such a Lord as he is would keep me in the
scenes which these countries do exhibit, and I feel assured will,
till the Lord has finished his judgments on them, for the contempt of
the name, nature, and offices of the Son of God; yet I linger in the
hope he has a remnant even among them, for whose return these
convulsions are preparing the way.
_April 28._--News more and more disastrous. The inundation has swept
away 7,000 houses from one end of the city to the other, burying the
sick, the dying, and the dead, with many of those in health, in one
common grave.[28] Those who have escaped, have brought their goods and
the relics of their families, to the houses the plague has desolated,
or desertion left unoccupied, and houses are yet falling in every
direction.
[28] I have heard of eight thus buried in one house, or
rather belonging to one family, the remains of which are come to
reside next us in a house, where those who had the charge of it are
dead.