Rudeness was general, humanity as yet unknown to the people.
Witches and heretics were burned alive. Gentle rulers were
contemned as weak; wild passions, severity and cruelty, everywhere
predominated. Human life was little regarded. Governments
concerned not themselves about the numbers of their subjects, for
whose welfare it was incumbent on them to provide. Thus, the
first requisite for estimating the loss of human life, namely, a
knowledge of the amount of the population, is altogether wanting;
and, moreover, the traditional statements of the amount of this
loss are so vague, that from this source likewise there is only
room for probable conjecture.
Cairo lost daily, when the plague was raging with its greatest
violence, from 10,000 to 15,000; being as many as, in modern
times, great plagues have carried off during their whole course.
In China, more than thirteen millions are said to have died; and
this is in correspondence with the certainly exaggerated accounts
from the rest of Asia. India was depopulated. Tartary, the
Tartar kingdom of Kaptschak, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, were
covered with dead bodies--the Kurds fled in vain to the mountains.
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