The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly
Magazine, June 1844, by Various

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Title: The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844
Volume 23, Number 6

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

Release Date: May 15, 2008 [EBook #25475]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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T H E K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII. JUNE, 1844. NO. 6.

THE PLAGUE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

In 1837 I was a resident in Galata, one of the faubourgs of Constantinople,
sufficiently near the scenes of death caused by the ravages of the plague
to be thoroughly acquainted with them, and yet to be separated from the
Turkish part of the population of that immense city. It is not material to
the present sketch to dwell upon the subject of my previous life, or the
causes which had induced me to visit the capital of the East at such a
period of mortality; and I will therefore only add, that circumstances of
a peculiarly painful nature obliged me to locate myself in Galata, where
there were none to sympathize in my feelings, or any one with whom I could
even exchange more than a word of conversation. I saw none but the widowed
owner of the house in which I had a chamber, her daughter Aleuka, and
Petraki, her little son.

While the epidemic raged, we four endeavored to keep up a rigid
quarantine. Each recommended to the other the strictest observance of our
mutual agreement not to receive any thing from without doors, except the
necessaries of life; and whenever we left the house, which was to be as
seldom as possible, not to come in contact with any one. Whenever I went
out I invariably wore an oil-cloth cloak, and by the aid of my cane
prevented the dogs of the streets, which are there so numerous, from
rubbing against me. If I visited any one, which I seldom did, I always sat
on a bench or chair to prevent conveying or receiving contagion; and
before even entering the house, I always underwe