MISCELLANEOUS. 



887 



the thieves, they assert, was made 

 to personate him. 



Finally, theMohammedan religion 

 recommends toleration ; iind all li- 

 beralMohammedans insist that every 

 man ought to worship God accord- 

 ing to the law of his forefathers. 

 " Jf it pleased God," say they, " all 

 men would believe ; why then 

 should a worm, a wretched 

 mortal, be so foohsh as to pretend 

 to force other men to believe ? The 

 soul believes only 3y the ixill of 

 God; these are the true principles 

 of Mohammedans. 



It must, however, be observed, 

 that the pinciples here laid down 

 are not always the rule of action, 

 any more than the sublime truths 

 inculcated by the Christian religion, 

 are altogether acted upon by its 

 professors- 



Nature and Effects of a peculiar spe- 

 cies of Plague which depopulated 

 WestBarbary in 1799 a«c^ 1800. 

 [^From thesame.j 



From various circumstances and 

 appearances, and from the charac- 

 ter of the epidemical distemper, 

 whiah raged lately in the south of 

 Spain, there is every reason to sup- 

 pose it was similar to that distem- 

 per or plague which depopulated 

 West liarbary ; for whether we 

 call it by the more reconcilcable 

 apellation of the epidemy, or yel- 

 low fever, it was undoubtedly a 

 plague, and a most destructive one, 

 for wherever it prevailed, it invari- 

 ably carried off, in a few months, 

 one-half, or one-third, of the po- 

 pulation. 



It does not appear how the 

 plague originated in Fas in the year 



1799. Some persons who were 

 there at the time it broke out have 

 confidently ascribed it to infected 

 merchandize imported into that 

 place from the east ; whilst others 

 of equal veracity and judgment, 

 liave not scrupled to ascribe it to 

 the locusts which had infested West 

 Barbary during the seven preced- 

 ing years, the destruction of which 

 was followed by the (jedrie) small- 

 pox, which pervaded the country, 

 and was generally fatal. The jed- 

 rie is supposed to be the fore-run- 

 ner of this species of epidemy, as 

 appears b)' an ancient Arabic ma- 

 nuscript, which gives an account 

 of the same disorder having carri- 

 ed off two-thirds of the inhabitants 

 of West Barbary about four centu- 

 ries since. But however this des- 

 tructive epidemy originated, its 

 leading features were novel, and its 

 consequences more dreadful, than 

 the common plague of Turkey, or 

 that of Syria or Egypt, as will 

 appear by the following observa- 

 tions: 



In the month of April, 1799, a 

 plague of a most destructive nature 

 manifested itself in the city of Old 

 Faz, which soon after communi- 

 cated itself to the new city, carry- 

 ing off one or two the first day, 

 three or four the second day, six 

 or eight the third day, and increas- 

 inji progressively until the mor- 

 tality amounted to two in the hun- 

 dred of the aggregate population, 

 continuing, with unabated violence, 

 ten, fifteen, or twenty days: be- 

 ing of longer duration in old than 

 in new towns ; then diminishing in 

 a progressive proportion from one 

 thousand a day to nine hundred, 

 then to eight hundred, and so on, 

 until it disappeared. 



Whilst 



