176 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
was nearly perished; in Ghilar he narrowly escaped death 
from the malignant fever which was ravaging the shores of 
the Caspian Sea, while in Persia the cholera brought him to 
such a state, that, neglected and alone, his moral strength 
alone sustained him and taught him to invent the means of 
unexpected restoration. At Muscat, he was seized with that 
formidable and peculiar fever, of which the first symptom is a 
faint of many hours, and from this terrible pass he extricated 
himself by the aid of quinine, an admirable discovery, invented 
bya Frenchman,* whose merits our government ought yet 
munificently to reward. 
But the severest trials which a traveller can endure, are 
those which proceed from the hand of man, and from the : 
almost total want of order in governments, and of probity 
among individuals. "There no efficacious aid can be obtained 
from the power which still lays claim to authority, and brute 
force carries the day, pillage is the business of whole nations; 
while cunning, falsehood, and the most disgraceful crimes pre- 
vail every where. On one occasion, while travelling by cara- 
van, it was necessary to have recourse to fire-arms, and Aucher 
Eloy being chosen general, his able management saved the 
lives of the party. At other times, when he had but four 
companions, he was exposed to all kinds of outrage and 
threats of assassination ; and more than once, his presence of 
mind alone extricated him from circumstances which appeared 
fraught with certain death. 
Our steam-boat tourists, who see no other cities but 
Smyrna and Constantinople, are apt to imagine that there is 
nothing now to fear from the religious prejudices of the East; 
but Aucher-Eloy shows us that these still exist in all their 
pristine virulence; and though, on certain occasions, that 
traveller's quality of a Frank earned for him some considera- 
tion, it much oftener exposed him to insult, and he was too 
ready to yield to his constitutional temerity, and to resent 
these affronts. The Persian character is the subject of his 
heaviest complaints. He depicts those people as the most 
* M. Pelletier. 
