Violent storms come up from
the south in March. Rain is very variable[FN#32]:
[p.181] sometimes three years have passed without a shower, whereas in
1841 torrents poured for nine successive days, deluging the town, and
causing many buildings to fall."
"The population of Suez now numbers about 4,800. As usual in Mohammedan
countries no census is taken here. Some therefore estimate the
population at 6,000. Sixteen years ago it was supposed to be under
3,000. After that time it rapidly increased till 1850, when a fatal
attack of cholera reduced it to about half its previous number. The
average mortality is about twelve a month.[FN#33] The endemic diseases
are fevers of typhoid and intermittent types in spring, when strong
northerly winds cause the waters of the bay to recede,[FN#34] and leave
a miasma-breeding swamp exposed to the rays of the sun. In the months
of October and November febrile attacks are violent; ophthalmia more
so. The eye-disease is not so general here as at Cairo, but the
symptoms are more acute; in some years it becomes a virulent epidemic,
which ends either in total blindness or in a partial opacity of the
cornea, inducing dimness of vision, and a permanent weakness of the
eyes. In one month three of my acquaintances lost their sight.
Dysenteries are also common, and so are bad boils, or rather ulcers.
The cold season is not unwholesome, and at this period the
[p.182] pure air of the Desert restores and invigorates the heat-wasted
frame."
"The walls, gates, and defences of Suez are in a ruinous state, being
no longer wanted to keep out the Sinaitic Badawin.
