CHAPTER VI

DROUGHT, FAMINE, AND PESTILENCE IN ASIA MINOR

ABOUT the same time there was also a drought in phrygia, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia: and, from want of ordinary necessaries, the inhabitants had recourse to unwholesome food, which further gave rise to pestilence. The change of food caused disease; excessive inflammation produced a swelling of the body, followed by loss of sight, and attended with a cough, and death took place on the third day. For a time no relief could be devised for the pestilence; but all-preserving Providence vouchsafed to the survivors a remedy for the famine, by raining down food in the unproductive year, in the same way as what was termed manna upon the Israelites; and, during the succeeding year, by willing that the fruits of the earth should be matured spontaneously. The spread of these calamities included also Palestine and innumerable other districts, making, as it were, a circuit of the earth.