in the house of Mr. Paizer, the Russian
consul, and this circumstance hurried the
Frank families out of the city and into the
neighbouring villages. Opposite Mr. Paizer's
house, in a Greek café, a case also happened,
which was thus accounted for. A few days
before, a woman had died of the plague at
Cooklujah, a place near Smyrna, among the
hills; a man who had once had the disease
acted as body-washer; and, being a Greek,
ever on the look out for his "honest penny,"
he cut off the dead woman's hair and brought
it into town for sale. He reached the coffee-
shop in question at a late hour in the evening,
and obtained leave to sleep there for the
night. One of the children of the house
handled the bundle which contained the hair,
and shortly afterwards there appeared in the
poor child plague symptoms. Inquiry was
made, and the boy remembered having
meddled with the stranger's bundle; the
Greek then acknowledged that it had
contained the hair of a woman dead of plague.
The consequence of all this was that the
speculation in hair "compromised" about
five hundred people who had visited the cafe
during the few days' interval between the
stranger's arrival and the appearance of
disease upon the boy. For this event
happened during the last few days of the Greek
Carnival, when all the taverns were crowded
and the town was full of masquerade and
mummery.

Standing one day at the back-door of the
Swiss boarding-house I saw a crowd gathering
about a little dwelling. A man was
pointed out to me as one who was to
pronounce whether the plague was or was not in
the family by which it was occupied. He
strode through the mass of people which
shrank from his touch, for he was a plague-
doctor; a man, who, because he had once
himself passed through an attack and escaped,
was exempt from farther risk, and therefore
added to his trade of shoe-making the profession
of plague watcher. Upon his nod now
hung the decision of the question, whether
the sick household should remain under its
own roof or be consigned to the much
dreaded hospitals. He declared the house to
be infected. There was no appeal. His
myrmidons immediately began to clear the
premises; even live poultry was thrown out
of the windows into a subjacent ditch, where
the poor fowls struggled painfully against
their fate, unaided by any one, because they
were "susceptible." A bearded Greek priest
then arrived and headed the procession,
formed by guards, who cut off the afflicted
family from contact with the people. The
mother, struck with plague, was taken off to one
hospital, and the children, still apparently in
health, were led off in a contrary direction to
St. Roque. Their wild screams almost
overwhelmed the sound of the priest's voice as
he prayed his way through the bareheaded
crowd.

But for the compromised in the case of
the coffee-shop just mentioned, there was no
public asylum. "To your tents!" was the
cry. And so they became outcasts on the
common above Windmill Point—men,
women, and children huddled under whatever
cloth or canvas they had hurriedly
procured, crouching misery under shreds and
patches, and awaiting so the stroke of the
destroyer. Few were the visits paid to this
wretched community; and when their
friends brought out provisions to them they
were laid down at a distance, for no nearer
communication was permitted. For a week
or two each suspected person suffered this
probation, whereof not the least torture was
the ceaseless croaking of large frogs, which
are the rightful owners of the common. Men
in such a position might well envy the Turk,
who has no fear at all, and who will even
buy and wear the clothes of the plague-
stricken, glad to have them at a bargain-
price.

Smyrna has been much visited by our
yachtsmen; and it is worth while for
travellers by yacht to remember that there is one
point in Smyrna Bay particularly perilous—
namely, off the Flag Castle, just two leagues
from the town to seaward. There the Eurotas,
French steamer, and the Yankee
Mississippi have, among others, taken the ground.
From this point to the city of Smyrna, the
bay spreads into a tranquil lake, of seven
miles in length by about three in breadth;
but off the Flag Castle the passage in and
out is narrow and beset with spits of sand.
The thousand sailing-vessels annually visiting
the port seldom fail to escape the danger by
not endeavouring to pass this point at night.
The steamers, however, run in at all times,
especially those making a forty hours'
passage from Constantinople.

We shall find that it has not received
its name of the Paris of the Levant
without as fair a title as to that which
the old poets gave it, of the Crown of
Ionia. There are smart little French arcades
and French shops everywhere. The Europeans
you meet in the street are of course much
more French than Frenchmen. There is a
fine club in the Frank street: it is not much
frequented. The Smyrna folks are too fond
of visiting, to spend their time at a club. Mr.
M'Craith, the pleasant English surgeon over
the way, has no end of their society. They
may be found in friendly little clusters and
coteries at his surgery all day long; and very
busy they are indeed with respect to the
affairs of the nation and the affairs of their
neighbours,—of which latter business there
is even more than desirable. It is a
marvellous matter how scandalous and garrulous
all Europeans grow who are settled in hot
countries. The natives are by no means
talkative or spiteful; but we—mercy on us!
—how we do chatter, and how censorious we
become. There is more slander spoken among