deliverance.

_Aug. 23._ _Tuesday._--Saturday last they made a sally from the city
against a tribe of Arabs, friends of Ali Pasha, and after putting them
to flight, and killing 100, they cut off the heads of 150 in cold
blood afterwards. It appears that the obnoxious parties within the
city are anxious to place the whole inhabitants of the city on such
terms with the assailants that they shall fear the consequences of
their entering the town as much as themselves. They have allowed about
5000 of the very poorest to leave the city, but the enemy without will
allow no more to pass. A letter came yesterday to Mr. Swoboda from a
Bohemian, who is physician to Ali Pasha, in which he desired to
communicate to all the Franks, that Ali Pasha had given the strictest
orders to his soldiers not to molest one of them. To a certain extent
this manifests good intentions; but we have had too much experience of
the powerlessness of governors at such times to restrain their
soldiers, to have much confidence in man: our confidence is in Him who
will and does watch over us for good. From the daily increase in the
price of provisions, and the daily coining new lies to feed the
people with hopes instead of bread, I think things cannot remain long
in their present position; yet the Lord knows. It is certain Bagdad is
altogether ruined; and if those who belong to the neighbouring
villages, and those who would leave it, were there ever so small an
opening, were gone, the city would be a desert.

I had a patient with me to-day, who told me that, out of a family of
sixteen, he alone remains from the plague. Persons he added, who
before these troubles were not worth a para, are seen riding about on
fine horses and trappings, covered with gold and pearls, &c.; and, on
the other hand, many who before were in very good circumstances, are,
by the robbery of those who should protect them, reduced to beggary.
It appears that Ali Pasha is in want of nothing but money and
ammunition; and those within the town want every thing but these. This
wretched city has suffered to an almost unparalleled extent the
judgments of God within the last six months: the plague swept away
more than two-thirds of its inhabitants--the flood has thrown down
nearly two-thirds of its houses; and property and provisions of corn,
dates, sugar, &c. &c. beyond all calculation, have been destroyed, and
we are now suffering under daily increasing famine, and we have yet
hanging ove