a Seyd, who left
it at the beginning of the plague, in charge of two servants who are
dead, is now filled by twenty persons from different directions. The
unburied dead, and the dying, are fearfully accumulating in the
streets. So difficult it is now to find persons to bury, that even the
priest of the Armenian church here, who died two days since, remains
yet unburied.

The water, thank God, is a little lower, but there seems now every
prospect that the moment the waters decrease, the surrounding Arabs
will come in, and plunder the city; yet even this is in the Lord's
hands--our wisdom has ever been to sit still, and see the salvation
of our God, and until we see his cloudy pillar arise from off our
tabernacle, where we feel it has hitherto rested, and move forward,
we shall yet judge our safety to be to sit still. We have in several
instances seen, that there was reason to bless God for remaining
quiet. We once thought of removing to the Residency, as a change to
the dear children, and as being nearer to the water; but still on the
whole we felt it best to remain here; and had we gone, we should have
been in the midst of the plague; or had we gone, when the T----s went
to Bussorah, what a state should we now be in, without the possibility
of removing, and in danger of our lives from the inundation and
falling of the walls, if we stayed.

We had again considered, whether it would be right to leave this with
the caravan for Damascus and Aleppo, which seemed the only opening
there might possibly be for us, so that if we let that pass by, we
must stay whether we would or not; still the Lord made us feel it was
our path to stay looking to him. And had we gone, what a state should
we have been in? For nearly three weeks they have been surrounded with
water, continually increasing around them, so that now we know not
what their situation may be, whether they are swept away, or remain;
but at all events we bless God for having inclined our minds to stay.
Why we did not join our dear and kind friends the T----s, in going to
Bussorah, we do not yet so clearly see the reason of, because we have
received no accounts thence, but it would have cut up alike our
connection with our work here, and with our dear friends at Aleppo,
with whom we feel it daily of more and more importance to have as
speedy a meeting as possible for advice and counsel.

We have just heard of the caravan already mentioned, as going to
Damascus and Aleppo