There was an old Armenian, who, whether he considered himself invulnerable, or whether poverty and misfortune made him reckless, I do not know; but he set up as a plague-doctor, and visited and touched those who were stricken with the pestilence. Whenever he came down the street, every one would start aside and give him three or four yards' space at least. Sometimes he had men who walked before him and cried to the people to get out of the way. As the old man moved on in his long, dark robes, shunned with such horror by all, the mind was awfully impressed with the fearful nature of the disease; for if the Prince of Darkness himself had made his appearance in the face of day, no one could have shown greater alarm at his approach than they did when the men cried out that the Armenian plague-doctor was coming down the street.
One peculiarity of the disease is the disinclination which is always shown by those who are plague-stricken to confess that they are so, or even to own that they are ill. They invariably conceal it as long as possible; and even when burning with fever and in an agony of pain, they will pretend that they are well, and try to walk about. But this attempt at deception continues for a very short period, for they soon become either delirious or insensible, and generally are unable to move. There is a look about the eye and an expression of anxiety and horror in the face of one who has got the plague which is not to be mistaken nor forgotten by those who have once seen them. One day at Galata I nearly ran against a man who was sitting on the ground on a hand-bier, upon which some Turks were about to carry him away; and the look of the unfortunate man's face haunted me for days. The expression of hopeless despair and agony was indeed but too applicable to his case; they were going to carry him to the plague hospital, from whence I never heard of any one returning. It would have been far more merciful to have shot him at once.
There are many curious superstitions and circumstances connected with the plague. One is, that when the destroying angel enters into a house the dogs of the quarter assemble in the night and howl before the door; and the Greeks firmly believe that the dogs can see the evil spirit of the plague, although it is invisible to human eyes. Some people, however, are said to have seen the plague, its appearance being that of an old woman, tall, thin, and ghastly, and dressed sometimes in black, sometimes in white: she stalks along the streets--glides through the doors of the habitations of the condemned--and walks once round the room of her victim, who is from that moment death-smitten. It is also asserted that, when three small spots make their appearance upon the knee, the patient is doomed--he has got the plague, and his fate is sealed. They are called the pilotti--the pilots and harbingers of death. Some, however, have recovered after these spots have shown themselves.