148 THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 



the matter with much earnestness ; and in the extensive 

 practice which I had at Lahore, I was induced to adopt the 

 medium between those two extremes. I know well, that in 

 politics the system of juste milieu does not enjoy a ^reat 

 degree of credit, especially since Louis Philippe has lost 

 by it the throne of France ; but that which is incongruous 

 and inconsistent in politics, may be otherwise in the empire 

 of science ; and the numerous successful results which I 

 have found this medium system to have effected, have tend- 

 ed most strongly to confirm that opinion. To support my 

 assertion, I may cite the two well-known words of the 

 Greek — Mydev ayav ~Ne quid nvnis — " Too much is as bad 

 as too little," as they say in England. 



Soon after the death of Runjeet Sing, in the year 1840, 

 I began to experiment upon this new principle ; and five 

 years afterwards, the epidemic cholera raged at Lahore. 

 It proceeded slowly from middle Asia, or Turkistan, through 

 Cabul and Peshawur, as we learned from the "Delhi Gazette", 

 in which it was stated that the epidemic was taking a direc- 

 tion towards the East Indies. I thus had sufficient warning, 

 previously to its arrival at Lahore, to prepare myself for 

 its reception. It was a dreadful spectacle, to witness the 

 fury with which it swept away its victims. At its first 

 appearance, the Hindoos and Sikhs conveyed the bodies 

 of the deceased through the gate called Tunksallee-Derwazeh, 

 because of its being near to the river Ravee, on the banks 

 of which they were accustomed either to burn the corpses 

 or throw them into the river ; but owing to the progress 

 of the cholera, the number of funerals became so great that 

 the passages of the bazaars were interrupted, and the govern- 

 ment was obliged to issue an order that the dead should 

 be carried through other gates also ; and thus the Sikhs and 

 Hindoos were, like the Musselmen, carried through the re- 

 spective twelve gates of the city. When the epidemic had 

 reached its height, there were upwards of eight hundred 

 deaths daily, out of a population of about 70,000. During 

 that fatal period L had the opportunity of making a large 

 number of experiments ; but the six weeks during which 



