FROM ACRE TO NAZARETH. 163 
■\ve were often liable to exaggerated reports chap. 
concerning the plague. They are something > ^-' • 
like the stories of banditti in many European 
mountains, inhabited by a race of shepherds 
as harmless as the flocks they tend. The case 
is certainly somewhat different in ^sia, espe- 
cially in the Holy Land, where banditti are 
no insubstantial phantoms that vanish when- 
ever they are approached. The traveller 
in this country must pass " the tents of 
Kedar, and the hills of the robbers." So it is 
with regard to the plague ; he will sometimes find 
the reality, although it be inadequate to the 
rumour. We visited several places where 
the inhabitants were said to die by hundreds 
in a day ; but not an individual of our party, 
which was often numerous, experienced in 
any degree the consequences of contagion. 
The French, owing to their extreme careless- 
ness, were often attaclved by it, and as often 
cured. The members of their medical staff, 
belonging to their army in Egypt, seemed to 
consider it as a mahgnant, and therefore 
dangerous fever ; but by no means fatal, 
with proper precaution. 
The rest of this short journey, like the 
preceding part of it, was over sterile limestoncy 
