little while it was carried slowly along, passing the Consulate on its way to the Moslem burial-ground, preceded by about forty men, solemnly silent, and followed by at least fifty women and children shrieking wildly, singing, and screaming.
Between the palm-fronds I could plainly see the figure of the dead man. The head was foremost, and slightly raised. I could not help thinking that, if a voice endued with power to awaken the dead, would tell the mother and the widow not to weep, and order the bearers of the bier to stand still, and say to the dead man, "Arise," it would be in his fête-day dress that he would sit up under the canopy of palms, and begin to speak. See Luke vii, 11- 15.
I made inquiry about the deceased, and found that he was a respectable Moslem, of about twenty-four years of age, and had left a wife and two children. He had died just before midnight, after a few hours' illness, so violent, that the Arab doctor pronounced it a case of cholera. There had been several very sudden deaths in Hâifa within a few weeks.
In the course of the day I became very ill. Frère Joseph, the Convent doctor, was sent for. He came and administered powerful doses of opium. The next day I was worse and very weak. He ordered emetics and bleeding, but I decidedly declined both, and dispensed with his attendance. My brother prescribed hot baths, and mustard and vinegar poultices, and I slept, but grew weaker and weaker. At three o'clock on Sunday morning, October 29th, he sent his kawass to Akka for a doctor, as a last resource. He wrote to the Pasha, and, ill as I was, I could not help laughing at the letter, on hearing it literally translated into English. It contained a request that his Excellency would allow his private doctor, the Armenian, to proceed to Hâifa to attend the "girl brother of the English Vice-Consul, who was attacked with a slight beauty, or prettiness." This is the polite Turkish form of alluding to illness, when woman is the subject of it.
