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72 different public burial places in the 7 miles cir- 
cumference of the city, befides many private ones 
within the walls. The Chriftans and Jews, who are 
fuppofed to be rather lefs than a feventh part of the 
number of inhabitants, have regifters, and each na- 
tion one burial place only : their lots this year is about 
3500 in the five months. 
I will not fhock your compafiionate difpofition by 
a detail of the naileries I have been witnefs to, but 
only mention, that during the months of June and 
July, (in the greateft part of which the burials were 
from 2 to 300 a day,) the noife of men finging before 
the corps in the day, and the fhrieks of women for 
the dead both day and night, were feldom out of our 
ears. Cuftom foon rendered the firft familiar to me ; 
but nothing could reconcile me to the laft; and as 
the heat obliges us to deep on the terrace of our 
houfes in the fummer, many of my nights reft was 
difturbed by thefe alarms of death. 
I blefs God, all my countrymen have been fo for- 
tunate as to efcape any infection in their houfes, tho’ 
each year 4 or 5 Europeans have been carried off, and 
each year the plague broke out in two houfes that join 
to ours. In one of them this year died a Francifcan 
Prieft, after two days illnefs, whofe bed was placed 
about fix yards diftance from mine. I believe I was 
in no great danger, as a wall 9 or 10 feet high fepa- 
ratcd our terraces ; but had I known his fituation, I 
lhould have moved farther off. The year before, I 
was thrown into a very great agitation of mind for a 
few days, by the death of my laundrefs’s lnafband ; 
for the very day he died of the plague, my fervant 
1 had 
