the ear like a voice from another world. At these summonses to prayer, the poor old Turk, who was always near at hand, and who had contracted a reverence and affection for the Christian that so loved his daughter, would retire to a corner of the room and mumble his devotions. It might be that the Christian father and daughter were included in those prayers; the petitions of the Musulman might be as efficacious at the throne of Heavenly grace and mercy, as purer and sounder homilies; but it was not the will of Providence that Madame W should be restored to health and to her fond father, whose life seemed to depend upon hers. I believe it was on the fourth day of her dreadful malady that death released her from her sufferings. For some hours before the awful moment her reason was restored, and though weak and faint and with but the "shadow of a sound" for her voice, she spoke composedly and most affectionately to her dear parent, who had grown pale, and thin, and haggard, in watching over his darling child. She recommended—and what is there on earth so sacred as the recommendation of a dying mother in behalf of her offspring?-she recommended her infant to the protection of her sisters; she spoke of the difficult and dangerous career of a girl deprived of a mother's care, and she hoped that her dear Marie would supply a mother's place. At intervals, when she saw her poor father bowed down with grief, she would make an attempt at composure and even gaiety; and her fine countenance would sparkle for a moment with its former vivacity, and her bright intellect still exercise that influence which when in health and happiness irradiated every society she frequented. It was after one of these efforts, that my friend, whose eyes were constantly riveted on her, saw a sudden change in her countenancethere was an awful something flashed over it—a flitting shadow of mystery and solemnity-the reflection of coming immortality—a something like the shade of a bird high up in the heavens cast on a deep and solitary lake. The fond father passionately grasped her hand as though by physical force he would prevent that spirit's eternal retreat. She fixed her large black eyes on his anxious face, and muttered "Je meurs." His arm was then round her attenuated waist, he clasped her closer to his bosom, he grasped her hand still firmer; a gentle pressure-so gentle that it would scarcely have discomposed the down on a feather, returned the paternal pressure, and she breathed forth her soul in his embrace, and her pale, cold face fell like marble upon the now desolate bosom of her father. From the first disclosure of her disorder-from the first moment when on entering that room which he had scarcely ever left since for an instant, she had silently raised her hand and showed the small, dark-red spot on her wrist, he had felt that his child must die : for days and sleepless nights he had watched the approaches of death, which he had every hour seen coming nearer and nearer and more rapidly; the voice of hope had long been mute in his affectionate heart; the grave was before his eyes; but now that she was dead, he could not comprehend how it could be-how she, who but now, breathed, and spoke, and looked love and life, should be an inanimate, cold, cold mass-how she, his own flesh and blood, should be senseless to his caresses and his despair-how she, so exquisitely sensitive in body as in mind, should now feel no more than the couch on which she reclined, or the wooden floor on which he trod. But she was dead! and all was over! As long as the light of life flickered in the socket, though void of hope, he could find occupation; and it was a relief to his fond and aching heart to busy himself about the person of his child, to wash her plague ulcer, to sponge her burning neck and breast, to humect her scorched lips, to administer her medicine or her nutriment, to smoothen her bed, to raise her in his arms, to support her on his bosom, to press her burning, bursting forehead with his hands, and to render, which he did alone, the every office of a nurse to his daughter-but now he had nothing to do, no service to render, no exertion to make; a fearful void had fallen upon his heart, and he could only groan in impotent despair! But there was yet one office to perform-there was yet another and the last-the last he could render on earth! and when the old Turk brought into the room the coffin which had been procured for the "mortal coil," the all that remained of so much beauty, and intelligence, and moral worth, the devoted father took the disfigured form of his child in his arms in the affectionate arms in which she had breathed her last, and himself laid her in that coffin, which he closed and secured with his own hands. In the countries of the East, even when there is no plague raging, interment rapidly follows dissolution. On the evening of the day of her death, Madame W- was carried to the Frank burying-ground above the extensive cypress-grove, the Turkish cemetery of Pera, than which, with its views of the rapid Bosphorus that laves the foot of that hill, of the sea of Marmora with its group of islands, and occasional glimpses at sun-set of the Bithynian Olympus, there can scarcely be a fairer spot on earth. Some few attached friends who had been apprized of the melancholy event, attended at the place of interment, to render their last testimonials of respect to a most amiable woman, and though they could not come in contact with him, they spoke words of condolence and comfort to the bereaved father, as he arrived slowly following on foot the remains of his daughter. Among these gentlemen was Mr. C, the British Consul-General, an old and dear friend of Mr. Z— When the coffin was lowered into the narrow grave-as the first earth was thrown on the coffin which returned that hollow sound, the most awful and desolating the ear of affection can hear, this dear friend renewed his offices of consolation. Up to this moment the fond father had borne himself with astonishing firmness and composure:-by the dying bed --by the lifeless body of his child, he had not let a tear escape him; in danger and death he had done all that man could do, and the feelings of nature-a parent's feelings-had been controlled by the stoicism of a man whose lot it had been to drink his full share from the ever brimming bowl of human calamities; but now that familiar and friendly voice of Mr. C, added to the effect of the desolating sounds from the disappearing coffin, unnerved him completely; the strength of heart and of head gave way before them, and with a cry of anguish, and a momentary access of insanity, the father rushed from his daughter's grave, and ran towards the Turkish cemetery, utterly unconscious of what he was doing. His friend, however, had every care taken of him: one of Mr. C's Janissaries followed him, and after the first burst of nature, easily induced him to return to Pera, where he was obliged to condemn himself to a lonely and sorrowful quarantine, ere he could seek alleviation to his sorrows in the bosom of his remaining family, or the society of his friends. When I was in Turkey, some three or four years had passed since this sad case of plague, and the infant of Madame Whad survived, and grown to a lovely little girl, who was often my pet companion. But not only did the child who was sleeping on her mother's bosom, and my friend Z who received her mother's dying breath, escape the dreadful contagion, but all those relatives and friends who had been with Madame W- and in close contact with her, when of a certainty she had the plague upon her, were equally exempt from the contagion. This was in every way a striking case; it was held by many who had no pretensions to medical science, as a proof of the non-contagion of the plague, and strongly assumed as such by a scientific man, the late Dr. M'Lean, who devoted much of his time, and finally lost his life in endeavours to ascertain the real nature of this destructive and most mysterious disorder. But Dr. M'Lean was guilty of an important omission, for in writing an account of Madame W's case, he never mentioned that a Greek servant girl some weeks after caught the plague in the chamber in which she had died, and followed her mistress to the grave. Mr. Madden, who was at Constantinople at the time, and acquainted with the family, and who has mentioned the case in his book of Travels, says "that several weeks after Madame W's death, when two servants were sent to open the apartment, which had been closed, and to remove the bedding, one of them, immediately on entering, complained of the closeness of the chamber; next day she had plague, and died in some few days;" but Mr. W, the husband of the unfortunate lady, added to me, in reference to the Greek girl, that, fatigued by the labours she had undergone in opening and purifying the house, and oppressed by the heat of the day, she had thrown herself down and reposed some time on the mattress on which her mistress had expired. In cases like these every accompanying circumstance, every detail, however minute, should be noted and given; and the additional fact stated by Mr. W——— will not perhaps be considered unimportant. The result of my inquiries into the history of the Plague at Constantinople and elsewhere, would certainly go generally to confirm the remarks with which Mr. Madden closes the case of Madame W—. "This is one of the many proofs (he alludes, of course, to At Therapia, a village on the Bosphorus, I was shown a little Greek girl who had been taken from sucking at her mother's breast, whilst she had the plague in full activity. The mother died of the disorder, which never attacked the infant! See Travels in Turkey, &c. by R. R. Madden, Esq. vol. i. p. 262. The death of the servant, it must be remarked, happened after Mr. M. had left the Turkish capital. Mr. Z her father) I have had of the influence of the mind over this disease. In no other complaint is this influence so marked. The man who is apprehensive of contagion is always the first to take this disease; fear is the predisposing cause of plague; bad living and bodily debility are the proximate causes of the susceptibility of pestilence. I have always observed those who were most deeply interested in the patient's fate; his father, mother, or wife, and who were constantly by his bed-side, were seldom attacked, while the servants and strangers, who entered the room now and then, were generally infected." Yet after this assertion of the prevalence of mind and affection, Mr. Madden is obliged to subjoin that he has known many Turkish houses in Constantinople which have been shut up after the death of every individual within their walls; this also has been pointed out to me at Smyrna as well as at the capital, and I have noted, that the houses that had been so desolated, were nearly without an exception the houses of Turks, who take no precautions against the plague, and can hardly be said to be possessed of the predisposing cause of fear. C. M. F. It will be seen from the daily papers, and more fully from an interesting communication from Constantinople, in the United Service Journal for July, that the Sultan has lately established a Quarantine, is preparing a magnificent Lazaretto, and is determined, despite of Mahometan prejudice, to adopt all those precautions against the Plague which are in use in civilized states. He has associated Christians and Franks in this truly salutary task. When the French threatened in flat-bottom'd boats Pitt-then Lord-Warden of the Cinque-Ports-held To settle, should the French come over, For they themselves would promise to destroy all |