96 QUARANTINE OF ANNANOUR. 
/ 
fortunate travellers, who were to find rest in the chamber myself 
and three companions were turned into. The floor was in many 
places overgrown with beds of mushrooms ! In vain we requested 
a more suitable spot for that night’s sleep, and the probation of 
four days. There was no person of authority on the spot, to 
give any such order. The commandant of the fort lived in the 
town of Annanour, nearly two miles off; and, as it was too late 
to send to him, we were obliged to make the best of our miser¬ 
able quarters; stopping up the gaping windows (for the cold 
without was now extreme); lighting a fire in the mouldering 
chimney, and ridding the floor of its garden appearance, by the 
removal of the mushrooms, and other weedy nuisances in their 
neighbourhood. Our servants were even worse off than ourselves ; 
having no hole whatever to put their heads in, they bivouacked 
for the night under the walls of our dungeon. 
This, certainly, was a most woeful reception for persons com¬ 
pelled to halt, after a weary journey, under the supposition of 
having the plague ; and much more dismal for those who came 
there in perfect health. In the first case, the exposures and 
misery of the place, would soon put an end to the troubles with 
the life of the poor infected wretch: while he who enters well, 
can hardly escape taking thence with him a severe cold at least; 
but more likely, the seeds of disorders, to remind him for many 
months of the sort of “ care taken of travellers in the quarantine 
of Annanour!” 
Next morning I dispatched a soldier betimes to the com¬ 
manding officer, also to the medical professor in the town, 
earnestly requesting better accommodation for myself and com¬ 
panions. Both these persons of authority soon made their ap¬ 
pearance ; and they united in assuring me, that I was already in 
the best apartment of the whole range. And, by way of rec »a- 
