GREAT SICKNESS. 
153 
supported with down cushions, extended on a mattrass spread on the 
floor and covered with a shawl quilt. Although he had frequently felt 
the good effects of our medicines, yet we found him completely in 
possession of the Persian doctors, who had so persecuted him d la Pour- 
ceaugnac, that he owned himself to be quite exhausted, and said, that 
although he had not been his own master hitherto, yet now he was so 
persuaded of the ignorance of his countrymen in the practice of physic, 
that he was determined again to resort to us, and entreated us to send 
him some of our medicine. After this conversation was over, we en¬ 
quired about his wife, who had also been ill, when she answered for 
herself from behind a curtain, placed over a door that opened into an¬ 
other room, saying, she was willing that her husband should take any 
medicine that we chose to prescribe for him ; for she was sure that the 
attentions which he had so long experienced from us, would not be with¬ 
held from him on this occasion. 
Although the Persians asserted that they never before experienced 
such a changeableness, and consequent sickliness in the climate of Is¬ 
pahan, yet upon a closer investigation, we found that it is often the 
case at the commencement of autumn, when Ispahan is afflicted by 
fevers, which are sometimes known to act as a plague, and carry off" 
immense numbers of the inhabitants. They hold fruit to be unwhole¬ 
some at that period ; but such is their love for it, that they eat it, par¬ 
ticularly melons, to excess, to which their sickness may be in great 
measure attributed. 
On the 15th of August, we had a storm of thunder and lightning, 
when we observed that the Persians (actuated by a superstitious feel¬ 
ing), said their prayers with more than usual fervour. Such storms 
are more uncommon in these regions, than in any other part of the 
East which I have visited, a circumstance which probably originates 
from the dryness of the climate of Persia*. However, on the spot 
* Oliviei' remarks upon thc dryness of the climate of Persia. ‘‘ C'est petit etre a cette 
secheresse de Fair qiiil faut attribuer un fait d*histoire naturelle qui nous a paru tres sur- 
prcnant. Nous n’avons vil dans tout Vespace que nous avons parcouru, aucune sorte de coquil- 
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