Beauplan.
The Persons afflicted with this Disease (which the French call Coltons) are lame of all their Limbs for a Year, as if they were struck with a Dead-Palsy; but endure great pains in all their Sinews, so that they are continually crying out. After a Year is expir'd, their Head falls some night into a great sweat, so that in the morning they find all their Hair clung together, and flat, like a Tail of salt Fish. Then the sick Person finds much ease, and some days after is perfectly well, nay better in health than ever he was before, only that hisHair looks scurvily, and cannot be comb'd; and if he should happen to cut it off within two days, the Humour that purges out at the Pores of the Hair would fall upon his Eyes, and he would be quite blind.
Among them they look upon this Disease as incurable; but I have cur'd several after the same manner as we do the Pox in France. Some perceiving this Disease come upon them, go away for a while into other Countrys for change of Air, which is another Remedy that cures them insensibly.
This Disease is not got by drinking out of the same Glass with those that have it; but if one Person lies with another that has it, the Husband gives it his Wife, and the Wife the Husband. The Physicians make a distinction between Male and Female, and say, that old Babas, as they term them, poison the Men and give them this Distemper, making them eat of certain Cakes. Others giving it in the steam of hot Water; so that he who receives it, finds his Brain disturb'd, and falls ill within a few days after. There are Children born with their Hair clotted together; but that is a good sign, for as they grow it loosens, and those Children can never after have this Distemper.
Plagues of Flys, Gnats and Locusts.
I must further add, as a thing very remarkable in that Country, that there is an infinite number of Flys along the Banks of the Boristhenes. In the Morning there are those of the common sort which do no harm; at Noon others as thick as a Man's Thumb, which trouble Horses very much, and sting them through the Skin, so that they are all over bloody; but at Night it is still worse along that River becaufe of the Knats, and other Infects, so that there is no sleeping without a Polené as the Cossacks call it, which is like a little Tent, under which they lie to secure themselves against those Vermin, and without which in the Morning their Faces would be all swollen. I once felt it, and can give an account of it; three days pass'd before my Face came to it self, and I could scarce see or open my Eyes, for my Eyelids were swell'd, and I look'd monstrously.
But, as I said, the Cossacks have a Polené made after this manner; They cut fifteen little Forks of Hazle, about an inch thick, and two foot and a half long, or thereabouts: These they fix in the ground about two foot one from the other, and breadth-way a foot distance. Then they lay five cross pieces of the same Hazle upon the Forks, and five more athwart them, and bind all together with a Withy. Over this they lay a Cotton-Cloth made on purpose, and sew'd, to fit this bigness; which covers not only the top, but all the sides, about a foot or
