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

SYRIA, EGYPT, GERMANY, &C. 69
voyage was to make drawings of the most interesting and striking
views of Constantinople for his panorama. 1 must add, in
justice
to Mr. Barker, that he has been extremely successful in his two
views of that place,
than which nothing can be more correct."
Nothing material occurred until the 8th, when, finding myself
tolerably recovered from my late indisposition, 1 dined with Lord
Elgin, and returned to Galala in the
evening, in the midst of a
heavy fall of rain. Owing to the unusual severity of the weather,
and the want of fire-places; the practice of burning charcoal in th^
apartments to heat them had become very frequent both among the
inhabitants and strangers, and was indeed in a manner indispensable.
For this purpose the charcoal was put into earthern pans, called
and must
monguls, from whence it exhaled its mephitic vapours',
have been productive
of much mischief in close and confined apart?
ments, if we could judge from the effects it produced on us, who
took every precaution
to renew the air. The most sensible of these
effects were headach, vertigo, nausea, and a violent throbbing pain
in the temples. We found that fatal consequences had already
resulted from this practice in the course of the present season, several
persons, in whose rooms charcoal had been burned during the
night, having been found dead the next morning. Among these
we were told of seven ladies belonging to the Grand Vizier, who
had been found dead in their apartments a few mornings before, and
whose death was to be ascribed to no other cause. Added to its
usual noxious qualities, the charcoal made in Turkey is extremely
bad, and by no means sufficiently charred.
The natural small-pox had lately been very prevalent in Constan-
tinople, and was extremely fatal in its effects. The great mortality
it occasioned was in some measure to be ascribed to the mode of
treatment, and the methods employed. The heat of the apartments
in which the sick were confined, and in which charcoal and other
inflammatory substances were burned, was equal to that of a hothouse;
and being extremely oppressive to persons in health, could
not fail to have a sinister tendencv in cases of eruptive fever, which
required indeed a treatment altogether
different from that which was
pursued.*
* The Earl of Elgin having happily introduced into practice the inoculation of Cow-pox
at Constantinople, the mortality from variolous disease will in future, I trust, be consi-
derably lessened.
His Lordship began with the inoculation of his own child : the disease, on its production,
was so extremely mild, that several Christian families speedily followed his Lordship's
laudable example. This success induced the Turks to lessen their prejudices ;
and several instances occurred, before I quitted Turkey, in which they had submitted to
the vaccine inoculation upon theti -
children with the usual happy consequences.