pon the wings of the wind, but was only excited and increased
by the atmosphere where it had previously existed.

This source of the Black Plague was not, however, the only one; for far
more powerful than the excitement of the latent elements of the plague by
atmospheric influences was the effect of the contagion communicated from
one people to another on the great roads and in the harbours of the
Mediterranean. From China the route of the caravans lay to the north of
the Caspian Sea, through Central Asia, to Tauris. Here ships were ready
to take the produce of the East to Constantinople, the capital of
commerce, and the medium of connection between Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Other caravans went from India to Asia Minor, and touched at the cities
south of the Caspian Sea, and, lastly, from Bagdad through Arabia to
Egypt; also the maritime communication on the Red Sea, from India to
Arabia and Egypt, was not inconsiderable. In all these directions
contagion made its way; and, doubtless, Constantinople and the harbours
of Asia Minor are to be regarded as the foci of infection, whence it
radiated to the most distant seaports and islands.

To Constantinople the plague had been brought from the northern coast of
the Black Sea, after it had depopulated the countries between those
routes of commerce, and appeared as early as 1347 in Cyprus, Sicily,
Marseilles, and some of the seaports of Italy. The remaining islands of
the Mediterranean, particularly Sardinia, Corsica, and Majorca, were
visited in succession. Foci of contagion existed also in full activity
along the whole southern coast of Europe; when, in January, 1348, the
plague appeared in Avignon, and in other cities in the south of France
and north of Italy, as well as in Spain.

The precise days of its eruption in the individual towns are no longer to
be ascertained; but it was not simultaneous; for in Florence the disease
appeared in the beginning of April, in Cesena the 1st June, and place
after place was attacked throughout the whole year; so that the plague,
after it had passed through the whole of France and Germany--where,
however, it did not make its ravages until the following year--did not
break out till August in England, where it advanced so gradually, that a
period of three months elapsed before it reached London. The northern
kingdoms were attacked by it in 1349; Sweden, indeed, not until November
of that year, almost two years after its eruption in A