Letters of the late Dr. Bromfield. 6393 



Extracts from the Letters of the late William Arnold 

 Bromfield, M.D., to his Sister. 



Rather more than six years have passed away since the universally 

 lamented death of Dr. Bromfield. His wanderings in pursuit of 

 Natural- History knowledge either in his own country, — more parti- 

 cularly his native Island, the Isle of Wight, — or in the wider field of 

 the West Indies, the United States, Egypt and Palestine, occupied 

 almost the whole of his life after he had arrived at manhood. He 

 entered Egypt on the 18th of October, 1850, ascended the Nile, 

 reached Cairo on his return on the 11th of June, 1851 ; passed onward 

 to the Holy Land, reached Beyrout on the 22nd of September and left 

 that place on the 28th, " sleeping that night at Zahleh and arriving the 

 next day at Baalbec ill through long fasting, his servant having 

 omitted to take the requisite provision for the journey. The following 

 night he was seized with diarrhoea, from which he suffered without 

 intermission until he reached, on the 1st of October, the house of the 

 Rev. J. L. Porter at Bludan, the summer station of the Mission, where 

 he was assiduously attended by Dr. Paulding. 



"Efforts were made to dissuade one so unfit to travel from proceeding 

 to Damascus ; but the combined illness of Mr. and Mrs. Porter, and 

 probably the restlessness induced by fever, determined him to press 

 on to that city. The journey seems to have greatly increased the 

 malady, and his recovery became, humanly speaking, hopeless. 



"On reaching the Hotel de Palmire, his symptoms were rapidly 

 aggravated, and assumed the form of malignant typhus ; while the 

 sufferer was watched during the brief remainder of his life, with the 

 kindest Christian care, by the Rev. James Barnett, and by Mr. George 

 Moore, an English traveller, who, under most trying circumstances, 

 volunteered his help to a fellow countryman." 



He died at Damascus on the 9th of October, 1851. No man ever 

 lived who attracted more entirely the affections of all who knew him; 

 he was of the most affectionate disposition, mild in his manners, sincere, 

 kind and considerate to all, of unwearying assiduity, of the most 

 invincible industry and the most ardent lover of truth : this latter 

 quality led him, during his voyage on the Nile, very frequently to 

 deprecate the high-flown terms with which previous travellers had 

 uniformly spoken of the antiquities of Egypt ; and so great was the 

 confidence placed in the veracity and judgment of Dr. Bromfield, 

 that, among his friends, this modified estimation of Egyptian antiquities 

 XVII. M 



