This is the most pleasant time, as the evenings are cool and
enlivening. Many affirm the moonlight is clearer here than with us,
but I did not find this to be the case. People sleep on the
terraces under mosquito nets, which surround the whole bed. The
heat rises in the rooms, during the day, as high as 99 degrees; in
the sun, to 122 or 131 degrees Fah.; it seldom exceeds 88 degrees
25' in the sardabs. In winter, the evenings, nights, and mornings
are so cold, that fires are necessary in the rooms.
The climate of this place is considered very healthy, even by
Europeans. Nevertheless, there is a disease here of which the young
females are terribly afraid, and which not only attacks the natives,
but strangers, when they remain several months here. This is a
disgusting eruption, which is called the Aleppo Boil, or Date-mark.
This ulcer, which is at first no larger than a pin's head, gradually
increases to the size of a halfcrown piece, and leaves deep scars.
It generally breaks out on the face; there is scarcely one face
among a hundred, to be seen without these disfiguring marks.
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