4 Recent Overlund Journey to India. 
last it reached the western side, to 
Shiraz in Persia, to Bassora and Bag- 
dad, by the way of Mascat, and Bu- 
shire. At Shiraz, in the province of 
Fars, it is computed to have destroyed 
6000 men in the course of eight short 
weeks. 
This calamity, advancing by regular 
stages over the hilly passes, attacked 
some stations, and here and there ca- 
priciously omitted one. As, for in- 
stance, the villages of Dastarjun and 
Kumaraj, which it passed over. Be- 
yond Shiraz, it advanced in a northerly 
direction to Zergun, and lastly to 
Majen, on the high road to Ispahan, 
where it stopped; and, at the setting- 
in of the cold-weather, disappeared. 
At Mascat and its neighbourhood 
10,000 people died of it; at Bassora 
15,000, ascending the river Tigris, so 
far as Bagdad. 
Thus, from its very singular and un- 
controlable mode of advance, some 
medical gentlemen of my acquain- 
tance are of opinion, that its future 
progress will not be retarded by any 
barrier, or any precautionary measure; 
but, on the contrary, that with the 
ensuing spring and summer it will re- 
commence its slow and steady march 
over the remainder of the Asian Con- 
tinent, and finally pass on to Europe, 
through Russia and Turkey ; that, in 
short, its rapacious demand for new 
objects can be glutted and stayed only 
by the Atlantic itself, if even that 
should avail. 
The singularity of this species of 
cholera consists in its progressive ad- 
vance in defiance of every obstacle, 
without being infectious; and in its 
attacking those at a distance, or who 
would fly from it, and passing by those 
who, from their necessary attendance 
on the sick, or their situation, appear 
the most exposed to its influence.’ Its 
cause has been attributed to every 
thing that wayward fancy can men- 
tion: to a rice diet, to high and low 
living, exposure to heat and cold, &c. 
And its remedy as variously attempted 
by emetics, cathartics, opiates, baths, 
hot and cold, spirits, and wines. Dr. 
M. assures me that he found opium 
most effectual, with some aperient me- 
dicine ; and that the drinking of water, 
for which the patient has generally 
so great a longing, is certain death. 
The cholera, in its capricious route 
from Bushire into the interior of the 
country, attacked Barazgun, Daliki, 
Kazirun, and a great number.of other 
[Aug. t, 
villages and towns, and spared Daris, 
Dastarjun, and Kamaraj. In diverg- 
ing from the high road, it visited 
chiefly the plain open country, and 
seemed to spare the more mountainous, 
such as the Mamasani-hills. It may 
also be observed that the wandering 
tribes called 11, or Ilyat, escaped this 
contagious disorder, if such it can be 
called. In many circumstances, this 
fatal disease appears to me to resem-= 
ble the species of plague that England 
was attacked with some 150 or 200 
years ago, and which is so well de- 
scribed, not only in the history of that 
age, but by the poet and physician 
Armstrong. J. H. 
Persian Gulph ; Dec. 24, 1821. 
== 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
T is now three months sinee I de- 
veloped in your pages the true 
proximate causes of those evils which 
afflict both rich and poor in this once 
flourishing empire. Parliament has 
been sitting ever since; but, like aH 
public societies, it is 100 polite to adopt 
any but fashionable doctrines, or too 
much raised above the labour of ori- 
ginal thinking to adopt any doctrines 
which, like other features of aristo- 
cracy have not flourished through many 
successive generations. Besides, my 
theory was given to the world in the 
small type and modest paper of a pe- 
riodical miscellany ; and, to have com- 
manded respect of distinguished per- 
sonages, it ought to have been printed 
in an inviting form, in an elegant type, 
and on superb hot-pressed paper. 
Unhappily, men in power, and en- 
gaged in wielding authority, are too 
conceited, or too much engaged, to de- 
rive instruction from -the press; and 
all truths so published by one genera- 
tion are valuable only to the next ge- 
neration. Hence mankind appear to 
amend as we view them through: the 
press ; but in practice they are govern- 
ed not by trutls, which reason and 
philosophy elicit from the circum- 
stances of the times, but by established 
principles, in no way applicable to the 
new relations in which events place 
them. 
Was ever any nation before so mad 
as to feign for years together, that, if 
a certain individual in another coun- 
try (on whose virtues and talents the 
population had, in the spirit of idola- 
try, conferred supreme power,) were 
not removed from that power, their in- 
dependance 
