[ 77 ] 
feldom fpread, and are never fo fatal, as fuch as come 
from abroad. 
Many are of opinion, that the heat kills the plague, 
as they term it, which is owing to a fooiifh luper- 
dition among the Greeks, who pretend, that it muft. 
ceafe the 24th of June, being St. John’s day, tho’ 
they may obferve the contrary happen every year; and 
the dronged plague, that was at Smyrna in my time, 
anno 1736, was hotted about that time, and con- 
tinued with great violence till the latter end of Sep- 
tember, when it began to abate ; but was not entirely 
over till the 12th of November, wdaen Te Deum was 
fung in the Capuchins convent. 
This midaken notion may be in fome meafure 
owing to a wrong fenfe put upon Profper Alpinus, 
who allows that the plague at Cairo begins to ceafe in 
the months of June and July, when the drong 
Northerly winds (called Embats or Etelian winds) 
begin to blow, which make the country much cooler 
than in the months of May, April, and March, when 
the plague rages mod ; which he very judly imputes to 
the great fuffbeating heats and Southerly winds, 
which reign during thofe months in that country : and 
it is then, that the fhips, which load rice, flax, and 
other goods and merchandife for Condantinople re- 
ceive the infection, and carry it with them hither ; 
and, upon thefe goods being delivered to perfons in 
different parts of the city, the plague breaks out at 
once with great violence among the trading people 
of the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews; fori haveob- 
ferved, both here and at Smyrna, that the Turks are 
commonly the lad of the four nations, who areinfedted ; 
but when the plague gets once among them, they fuf- 
