The houses are prettier inside than out; they have clean plastered courts, numerous windows, etc.  The rooms are large and lofty, but not nearly so magnificently furnished as those in Damascus.  The summer is so hot here, that people find it necessary to change their rooms three times a-day.  The early part of the morning is passed in the ordinary rooms; towards 9 o’clock they retire, during the remainder of the day, into the underground rooms, called sardab, which, like cellars, are frequently situated fifteen or twenty feet below the surface; at sunset they go up on to the terraces, where they receive visits, gossip, drink tea, and remain until night.  This is the most pleasant time, as the evenings are cool and enlivening.  Many affirm the moonlight is clearer here than with us, but I did not find this to be the case.  People sleep on the terraces under mosquito nets, which surround the whole bed.  The heat rises in the rooms, during the day, as high as 99 degrees; in the sun, to 122 or 131 degrees Fah.; it seldom exceeds 88 degrees 25’ in the sardabs.  In winter, the evenings, nights, and mornings are so cold, that fires are necessary in the rooms.

The climate of this place is considered very healthy, even by Europeans.  Nevertheless, there is a disease here of which the young females are terribly afraid, and which not only attacks the natives, but strangers, when they remain several months here.  This is a disgusting eruption, which is called the Aleppo Boil, or Date-mark.

This ulcer, which is at first no larger than a pin’s head, gradually increases to the size of a halfcrown piece, and leaves deep scars.  It generally breaks out on the face; there is scarcely one face among a hundred, to be seen without these disfiguring marks.  Those who have only one have reason to consider themselves fortunate; I saw many with two or three of them.  Other parts of the body are also not exempt.  The ulcers generally appear with the ripening of the dates, and do not go away until the next year, when the same season returns again.  This disease does not occur more than once in a lifetime; it attacks children for the most part during their infancy.  No remedy is ever applied, as experience has shown that it cannot be prevented; the Europeans have tried inoculation, but without success.

This disease is met with in several districts on the Tigris; there are no traces of it to be found at a distance from the river.  It would appear, therefore, to be, in some way, connected with the evaporation from the stream, or the mud deposited on its banks; the former seems less probable, as the crews of the English steamers, which are always on the river, escape, while all the Europeans who live on land fall victims to it.  One of the latter had forty such boils, and I was told that he suffered horribly.  The French consul, who expected to remain here for several years, would not bring his wife with him, to expose