120 Madden's Travels in Turkey, Sfc. 



to breathing : diseases of the lungs are unknown. Except 

 during the prevalence of the Etesian gales, the sky of Egypt 

 is serene and beautifully blue. 



All Egypt in the vicinity of the river is a lake, from the be- 

 ginning of August to the end of October ; that is to say, the 

 Nile then brings down all the moisture which the Etesian 

 winds, loaded with clouds from the Mediterranean, had been 

 carrying up since June. On the subsidence of the Nile, agri- 

 culture commences. Early in January spring puts forth its 

 buds, and in April the first harvest is ended. By a system of 

 irrigation the country is made to afford a second harvest, which 

 is reaped in August, prior to the overflow. 



At Alexandria the thermometer, during the summer months, 

 seldom exceeds 90°, nor is the heat oppressive ; yet, owing to 

 other causes, its climate is the most unwholesome in all Egypt. 

 The principal of these is the vicinity of the Lake Mareotis, 

 now a saline swamp. The quarter of the city nearest the lake 

 is subject to intermittent fevers in the spring, and to malig- 

 nant putrid fevers in the autumn. 



The climate of Upper Egypt is singularly dry, yet syca- 

 mores, five or six hundred years old, have thriven there with- 

 out a drop of rain, and some, which are highly situated, without 

 even deriving moisture from the inundation. A sheet of 

 paper may be exposed there all night without its imbibing a 

 particle of moisture, the nocta extending only to Lower and 

 Middle Egypt. In Alexandria, Damietta, and Rosetta, there 

 is more or less rain from November till March^ and sometimes 

 excessively cold weather ; but in Cairo, though only one hun- 

 dred and fifty miles distant, there is much less of both. In 

 Upper Egypt there is no rain for six or even ten years, but 

 when it does come, it is in torrents. During the intense heat 

 of summer many birds leave Egypt, while the swallows of 

 Europe make it their abode in winter. Their last starting- 

 place appears to be the Morea. 



A medical man travelling through Turkey must naturally 

 hear much of the plague, but Mr. Madden did more : he saw 

 a great deal of it, and studied the disease with a very proper 

 degree of professional zeal, avoiding, we are happy to say, at 

 the same time, those absurd attempts at bravado, which have 

 cost some English physicians their lives, and others their cha- 

 racter for common sense. One of the best chapters in Mr. 

 Madden's first volume is that which he devotes to the subject 

 of plague (Letter XVII. to Dr. Quin) ; and his opinions really 

 appear to us so good, that it is but justice to bring them at 



