Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and across the desert into Egypt ...

SYRIA, EGYPT, GERMANY, &C. 49
ing tobacco, and opium, may give rise to these disorders. Hernias
are common. Besides plague, they are occasionally subject
to malignant and bilicus remittent and intermittent fevers in au-
tumn.
In Constantinople, Pera, and the suburbs, there are, it is said,
nearly five thousand' persons who profess the different branches of
the medical art. They are natives of almost every nation, but con-
sist more particularly of 'Furls, Greeks, Armenians, and Italians,
and are for the greater part u.teily ignorant of the principles either
of medicine or of surgery. There are, however, some exceptions
to this observation, and among them a Mr. Ruine, an Italian,
whom I accidently met with a few days before the period of which
I am now treating. He occasionally attends the Grand Seignor,
when indisposed, as well as the harem, and many of the principal
officers of state. For these services he has no salary, but is paid
for his visits. His practice is extremely lucrative. The person who
at present holds the appointment of physician
to the Sultan, is a
Turk, who, notwithstanding he is entirely unacquainted with medicine,
receives an annual stipend of nearly five thousand pounds
sterling. Almost every
individual in Turkey has a nostrum for
some disease or other.
On the 18th, in the afternoon, in company with some of our of-
ficers, we crossed over to the Asiatic side of the river to see the
procession of the dervises, it being the birth-day
of the founder of
that sect. We were unfortunately too late to be present at this ce-
remony, which, as we afterwards heard, was very numerously attended.
We had, however, a very agreeable walk in the delightful
valley in which the assembly was held. The janissary by whom
we were accompanied for our protection, in his eagerness to get
our boat ready, was pushed into the water, and otherwise maltreated,
by a boatman belonging to the Sultana Valuta, or Queen Mo-
ther, who had come privately to witness the above ceremony. This
insult being in a manner considered as offered to ourselves, a representation
of the particulars of the affiay was made by General
Kochler, to whom an apology was afterwards sent.
On the 21st, the heat of the weather was very oppressive, the
thermometer being, at eight o'clock in the morning, at 11 a in the
sun.
On my arrival at Chiflkk on the 22d,
I found one of the men
belonging to the British mission ill
dangerously
with a fever.
(7 )