As all the dirty clothes of Athens, comprising those of the military hospital, in which there were grave cases of typhoid, were washed in that stream, the consequences were soon evident in a great outbreak of the malady in the city, the victims being estimated at 10,000 persons; and, two days before that on which the commission was to start on its work, I was taken ill.

I sent for a doctor and he declared the illness to be fever, and probably typhoid.

I went to bed, and took for three days in succession forty grains of quinine a day, getting up on the fourth, to find the commission gone and myself in no condition to follow it; and so I missed the most interesting journey which had ever offered itself in my journalistic career.

My exasperation at the imbecility of the mayor can be easily imagined, and it was vented in a proper castigation in my correspondence.

In the burning weeks that followed, the state of Athens reminded one of Boccaccio's description of Florence in the plague.