"
At this time I was informed that of twenty-five thousand people at
Alexandria, twelve thousand had died already; the destroyer had
come rather later to Cairo, but there was nothing of weariness in
his strides. The deaths came faster than ever they befell in the
plague of London; but the calmness of Orientals under such
visitations, and the habit of using biers for interment, instead of
burying coffins along with the bodies, rendered it practicable to
dispose of the dead in the usual way, without shocking the people
by any unaccustomed spectacle of horror. There was no tumbling of
bodies into carts, as in the plague of Florence and the plague of
London. Every man, according to his station, was properly buried,
and that in the usual way, except that he went to his grave in a
more hurried pace than might have been adopted under ordinary
circumstances.
The funerals which poured through the streets were not the only
public evidence of deaths. In Cairo this custom prevails: At the
instant of a man's death (if his property is sufficient to justify
the expense) professional howlers are employed. I believe that
these persons are brought near to the dying man when his end
appears to be approaching, and the moment that life is gone they
lift up their voices and send forth a loud wail from the chamber of
death.
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