BOOK II. CHAP. VIII. nj 



injurious to the hcakli ot" thofe who inhabit the loweft, which is 

 the hotteft, quarter ot the town. 



The third is, a ftrange method of repairing their ftreets wirh the 

 offals and naftinefs raked from all the dunghills about the town ; 

 inftead of gravel, or a frefli wholefome foil, of which there is great 

 plenty in the environs. 



Thefe are fo many artificial annoyances, which cannot, I think, 

 improve the quality of the air they breathe. Natural evils, if they 

 cannot be removed or remedied, muft be acquiefced with; but 

 for an intelligent people to take pains to poifon themfelves in this 

 manner can only be imputed to a liftlefs indolence, or a great de- 

 fcift of good police among them. The Mahometans can give them 

 fome inftruftions not to be flighted, Tiie burial-places of the 

 Turks are handfome and agreeable; which is owing chiefly to the 

 many fine plants that grow in them, and which they carefully 

 place over their dead. They acl much more conliflently than the 

 Chriftians, when they bury their dead without their towns, and 

 plant over them fuch vegetables as, by their aromatic aiid balfimic 

 odours, can drive away or correft the fatal exhalations vvith which 

 the atmofphere of llich places is generally loaded. By this eafy 

 pra<Slice they efcape many misfortunes which affe£l Chriftians from 

 their wandering and dwelling continually among the dead. Cyprelics 

 and rofemary are the plants moft abundant in thefe grounds ; and the 

 Turks never, if they can avoid it, lay two bodies in the fame 

 grave. There can be no doubt but experience taught them the rec- 

 titude of this praftice in a warm climate, fubjeil lb frequently to 

 the vifitations of the plague. The contrary pradice in the colder 

 climates (Britain for example) is certainly in fome degree perni- 

 cious, as the air even here, at certain times of the year, is in a 

 ftate to favour the afcent of very unwholcfome vapours from fuch 

 grounds, particularly in towns, where the furrounding walls con- 

 fine the moifture that falls within, and prevents the greater part 

 of it from efcaping any other way than by exhalations. But our 

 adoption of this, and fome other Britilh cufloms, in a hot climate, 

 is unqueftionably abfurd. Why fliould it be thought irrational to 

 follow rather the Turkifli cuflom, and bury the dead at a fmall 

 diftance to the North-weil: of our towns iu the Weft-Indies, from 



Q 2 which 



