The Survivors Radiate From This Common Centre,
Upon Their Return To Their Respective Homes, To Which They Carry The
Seeds Of The Pestilence To Germinate Upon New Soils In Different
Countries.
Doubtless the clothes of the dead furnish materials for
innumerable holy relics as vestiges of the wardrobe of the Prophet.
These are disseminated by the pilgrims throughout all countries,
pregnant with disease; and, being brought into personal contact with
hosts of true believers, Pandora's box could not be more fatal.
Not only are relics upon a pocket scale conveyed by pilgrims and
reverenced by the Arabs, but the body of any Faky who in lifetime was
considered unusually holy is brought from a great distance to be
interred in some particular spot. In countries where a tree is a rarity,
a plank for a coffin is unknown; thus the reverend Faky, who may have
died of typhus, is wrapped in cloths and packed in a mat. In this form
he is transported, perhaps some hundred miles, slung upon a camel, with
the thermometer above 130 degrees Fah. in the sun, and he is conveyed to
the village that is so fortunate as to be honored with his remains. It
may be readily imagined that with a favorable wind the inhabitants are
warned of his approach some time before his arrival.
Happily, long before we arrived at Sofi, the village had been blessed by
the death of a celebrated Faky, a holy man who would have been described
as a second Isaiah were the annals of the country duly chronicled.
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