WESTERLY PROGRESS IN 1818.
19
fresli occasion to recommence its attacks with renewed vigour.
Early in November tlie cholera broke out in the district of Mirzapore. Towards the middle of the month it was at Rewah ; but previously to this had appeared in the Marquis of Hastings' camp on the banks of the river Scinde, in Bundelcund. The first cases were reported as having occurred on the 7th and 8th of the month ; it then burst out with irre- sistible fury among the troops and camp followers. " The whole camp put on the appearance of an hos- pital ; the dead were left u.nburied ; the natives deserted in flocks, and some of the Governor- General's servants dropped down dead behind his chair, (?) and the Marquis himself was apprehensive of dying here ; so that he gave secret instructions, should the event occur, to be buried in his tent."*
The army was moved from its position on the 19th of November, from which time the disease became less virulent, and speedily disappeared. But it is not to be supposed that this terrible outburst of cholera was confined to the camp of the Governor-Geiferal ; on the contrary, it spread throughout Bundelcund, pursuing a south-westerly direction, and devastating almost every village and town in the province.
During the months of December, January, and February, there was a decided lull in tTie virulence as well as in the advance of the epidemic, but its influence by no means entirely ceased ; for, in the majority of the districts in which it had been generated, we hear of cases of cholera having occurred throughout the cold season.
- ' A Treatise on the Epidemic Cholera.' By F. Corbyn. Calcutta,
1832,
