TRAVELS IN BARBARY* 
pany, so loaded with them, that if she had at* 
tempted to rise, she could not have supported their 
weight. 
The same narrative gives some striking parti* 
culars of the ravages committed by the plague at 
Tripoli. At first, only an obscure rumour of its 
existence began to be circulated, and the Euro- 
pean residents were earnestly entreated by the 
Basha not to augment the alarm by shutting their 
houses. The deaths, however, multiplying, they 
determined upon that step. It consisted in the 
entire exclusion of the natives, unless at one par- 
ticular time of the day, when a person, hired for 
the purpose, came in, placed provisions in the lobby, 
with a note of the value, and immediately de- 
parted. The plague now raged more and more, 
and the funerals became daily more numerous* 
At first they were conducted with order, and with 
all the splendour which the relatives were able to 
afford ; but as the malady became universal, all 
distinction ceased ; the Cologli, a species of mili- 
tia, went round once a day for the dead, fastened 
their bodies to the horses, and carried them to a 
common place of sepulture. A full third of the in- 
habitants died, and as a great number fled, the place 
appeared, on the cessation of the plague, to be a com- 
plete wilderness. All the cities of the east, com* 
monly at no very distant periods, are laid waste by 
a similar desolation. 
