Baghdad in 1830 – A Year of Flood, Plague, Starvation, and War

Extracts from: Journal of a residence at Bagdad, during the years 1830 and 1831, by MR. ANTHONY N. GROVES, published in London in 1832

Sept. — The weather is now become decidedly cooler. A fortnight since the average height of the thermometer in the shade, during the warmest part of the day, was 117; it is now lowered to 110. During the hottest time of the year, which is now just over, the quicksilver was rarely lower than 110, or higher than 118 in the shade, except in the morning, when the general range was from 87 to 93.

Oct. 21. — There has just been acting here a scene of duplicity, falsehood, and bloodshed, which appears strange to us, but is not uncommon in this land of misrule and cruelty. A Capidji (or Ambassador) from the Porte to the Pasha has been long expected, and with evident anxiety by him and those immediately about him, which was increased to the highest pitch, when by a messenger from Aleppo, the Pasha received the intelligence, that this man's intention was to supersede him, and of course to destroy him. It then became the object of the Pasha to endeavour to get him into his hands, which was the more difficult, as it is usual for the Capidji to read publicly his firman, and proclaim the successor at Mousul, or some place near, who, collecting the Arabs, marches to lay siege to this place, till the head of the Pasha is delivered to him. To prevent this, therefore, the Pasha made the Imrahor, or Master of the Horse, who has the whole arrangement of the military force, to write a letter to the Capidji, begging him to come here at once, and that he would, without a struggle, give the head of Dauoud Pasha into his hand, whereas if he remained at Mousul, there must be an open contention about it.

By this he was allured to approach the city, and the Pasha sent out 700 or 800 men under pretence of showing him honour, to meet him and secure him in case any accounts of the true state of the case should reach him, that he might have no possibility of flight. Thus he was brought into the city, and his quarters appointed in the house of the Musruff; when, after the Pasha had obtained from him the declaration of his object, a Divan was called, and it was determined to put him to death. This event has thrown the city into great consternation, and every one who can, is buying corn in expectation of what is to follow. For the tragedy will not end here, as a friend of the Capidji is left behind at Mousul, and another Capidji is at Diarbekr, waiting the result of this negociation. So it appears that the Sultan is determined to act at once and decidedly against this Pasha. We are now, therefore to expect a siege, and a state of anxiety and fear in this city for some months; but the Lord, who sitteth in the heavens, is ordering all for his own glory, and for our safety, and he will provide for us.

Feb. 19. — To-day we have heard that the above report of the plague being at Sulemania is false; that it has been there, but has now left it; so we know not what to believe.

March 28. — The plague has now absolutely, we believe, entered this unhappy city. Major T. and all those connected with the residency are preparing to leave for the mountains of Kourdistan; they have most kindly invited us to go with them and form part of their family; this is most truly kind, and there are many things to recommend it — the opportunities it would afford M. for learning Armenian, and me Arabic, and for observation on the country and people, besides our being delivered from all apparent danger either from the sword which threatens us from without, or the pestilence within. The absence of all these friends and so many of the principal Christian families who are going with them, leave us exposed to the bigotry of the people in any tumults that may arise — all these things presented themselves to our minds. But there are considerations that outweigh these in our minds: in the first place, we feel that while we have the Lord's work in our hands we ought not to fly and leave it; again, if we go, it is likely that for many months we cannot return to our work, whereas the plague may cease in a month; opportunities of usefulness may arise in the plague that a more unembarrassed time may not present; and our dear friends from Aleppo may come and find no asylum. The Lord gives great peace and quietness of mind in resting under his most gracious and loving care, and as the great object of our lives is to illustrate his love to us, we believe that in the midst of these awful circumstances, he will fill our tongues with praise as he does fill our hearts with peace.

March 29. — Yesterday Dr. Beagrie and Mr. Montefiore went and saw several patients they thought afflicted with the plague; but their minds were not perfectly made up. To-day, there is no longer any doubt. I accompanied Mr. Montefiore, in his visits, and now there are about twenty, and the number is increasing. Thus, then, this long expected scourge has visited this city, and our Father only knows when the awful visitation may cease. We can only cast ourselves on his holy and loving hands for safety or peace: into these hands we do cast ourselves, with all that is dearest to us in this world. We have proved our Jesus to be the Captain and Author of our hopes, and always found that in the power of his name we have obtained the victory. Nothing but the Lord's loving pity can prevent the most awful extension of the disease; not only are the people crowded together, two or three dying in one room, but the intercourse is perfectly unrestricted in all parts of the city, so that I fear what is now confined to one quarter, and might possibly, by a vigilant government be kept there, is spreading in all directions. We have, therefore, been forced to the most painful step of breaking up our school, for it would have been quite impossible to collect together eighty children from different parts of the city, without exposing all to danger. May the Lord enable us profitably to avail ourselves of our retirement, to cultivate a more extended communion with him who is our life. Dear M. is much staid on her God, and feels that as he has been, so he will be to us a hiding place in every storm.

April 1. — The plague is still increasing, but apparently not rapidly. We wait the Lord's pleasure in our own house. The only inconvenience is want of water, which cannot be had from without; and they say that when the plague becomes intense all the water carriers cease to ply; but the Lord hath said, in the time of famine ye shall be satisfied; on this promise we rest in peace.

The deaths at present from the plague are confined to the Mohammedans and the Jews. To avoid it, many of the Jews have gone to Bussorah, and the Kourds who brought it here have fled from the city; a large caravan of Christians are now thinking of returning to Mosul, who were driven from Mosul three or four years ago by plague and its attendant famine.

The poor Jews have been robbed of every thing by the Arabs, and sent naked back, and there seems little better prospect for those who are going to Mosul: they have the Arabs on one side the road, and the Kourds on the other.

April 4. — We were last night alarmed by the voices of apparently thousands of persons on the other side of the river; by degrees the discharges of guns were mingled with the cries, which gradually extended also to this side the river. We concluded it must be from a tribe of Arabs having broken into the city, the noise being exactly similar, onlv much more violent, to that of the two tribes of Arabs who were contending the other day. But after an hour's suspense, we heard it was a concourse of Arabs to supplicate from God the removal of the plague from them.

The deaths from the plague do not seem to increase with any rapidity, these two or three days; 150 perhaps is the highest any day. On a preceeding occasion, about 60 years ago, it amounted to near 2000 a day. There is with us the father of our schoolmaster, who had the plague at that time, and says you might have walked from one gate of the city to the other, and hardly have met a person or heard a sound. We trust it may be the Lord's gracious purpose to take off the heaviness of his judgment, and spare yet a little longer this sinful city.

April 9. — Stillness still prevails over the city, like the calm which precedes a convulsion; our neighbours are preparing for defence, by getting armed men into their houses, but we sit down under the shadow of the Almighty's wings, fully assured that in his name we shall boast ourselves. The Pasha, however, has not gone out as he intended yesterday.

We have just heard that the reports of the plague has stopped for a little the approach of the enemies of the Pasha, still every thing is exceedingly unsettled. He is going to shut himself up in the citadel till the answer comes from Constantinople to his overtures, but all those about him are against him, and wishing for the arrival of his enemies. About fifty went out the other day, and seized on Hillah, but they were driven out.

April 10. — The accounts brought us of the numbers of those who have died of the plague, on this side of the river alone, in little more than one fortnight, all agree in making it about 7000. The poor inhabitants know not what to do: if they remain in the city, they die of the plague; if they leave it, they fall into the hands of the Arabs, who strip them, or they are exposed to the effects of an inundation of the river Tigris, which has now overflown the whole country around Bagdad, and destroyed, they say, 2000 houses on the other side of the river, but I think this must be exaggerated; the misery of this place, however, is now beyond expression, and may yet be expected to be much greater. Dreadful as the outward circumstances of this people are, their moral condition is infinitely worse; nor does there seem to be a ray of light amidst it all. The Mohammedans look on those who die of the plague as martyrs, and when they die there is no wailing made for them; so that amidst all these desolations there is a stillness, that when one knows the cause is very frightful. The Lord enables us to feel the blessedness of the 91st Psalm, at least of the portion of those to whom that Psalm pertains; and we have, amidst all these very trying circumstances, a peace that passeth understanding. We feel indeed that we owe it to our Lord's love to be careful for nothing, neither to run or make haste as others, but to stand still and see the salvation of our God.

April 12. — I have just taken leave of the kind T.'s. The accounts of the dead are truly terrific; they say the day before yesterday 1200 died, and yesterday Major T.'s man of business obtained a receipt to the amount of 1040 on this side of the river. If this statement can be relied on, the mortality, within and without the city, must be truly appalling, and should it not please the Lord soon to stay the destroying Angel's hand, the whole country must become one wide waste.

April 13. — The plague has just entered our neighbour's dwelling, where they have collected together nearly thirty persons, not simply their own family. It seems as if a spirit of infatuation had seized them, for instead of making their number as small as possible, they seem to congregate as many together as they can.

April 14. — This is a day of awful visitation. The accounts of deaths yesterday vary from between 1000 and 1500; and to-day, they say, is worse than any, and the increase in the numbers of deaths is exclusive of the immense multitudes who are dying without the city. One of our schoolmasters is gone to Damascus, and has taken with him his little nephew who was boarding with us, so we are indeed now quite alone. In fact, nothing prevents the entire desertion of the city, but the dangers of the way, and the poverty of the inhabitants.

April 15. — The accounts of the mortality yesterday still more alarming — 1800 deaths in the city. There was great danger of the bodies being left in the houses, and the inhabitants flying and leaving them unburied, but by great exertions on the part of some young men in one quarter of the town to bury the dead there, others have been stimulated in other quarters to similar exertions, and last night all were buried. Our Moolah has just been here; he says he has bought winding sheets for himself, his brother, and his mother. He says that yesterday he was in the Jew's quarter, and only met one person, and that was a woman, who, when she saw him, ran in and locked the door. Meat, for some days, or any thing else from without, we have been unable to get. Water alone we have obtained. But, to-day, even that we cannot get at any price; every waterman you stop, answers he is carrying it to wash the bodies of the dead.

April 16. — The accounts of yesterday are worse than any day, and an Armenian girl, who has been here this morning", said she saw, in a distance of about 600 yards, fifty dead bodies carrying to burial. The son of Gaspar Khan, our next neighbour, is dead. Two have been carried out from a little passage opposite our house to-day, where two more are ill. All you see passing have a little bunch of herbs, or a rose, or an onion to smell to, and yet as to real measures of precaution there has not been one step taken; not even contact avoided, and the most unrestrained intercourse goes on in every direction, so that nothing but the Lord's arm shortening it, can prevent the entire desolation of the whole province. The population of Bagdad cannot exceed 80,000, and of this number more than half have fled,^ so that the mortality of 2000 a-day is going on among considerably less than 40,000 people.
April 19. — Still heavy, heavy news. The Moolah has called to give us an account of the city. He says it now stands stationary at between 1,500 and 2,000 a-day, and has been so for a fortnight. What a mass of mortality! Among the Pasha's soldiers, he says they have lost, in some of the regiments, above 500 out of 700. — And in the towns and villages without, the report is, that it is as bad or worse than within the city.

April 20. — The plague much the same. Among the Armenians nine were buried yesterday, and seven to-day. There are not left in the city more than 400, and now there is the plague in every third or fourth house. The water also is encreasing, so that a little more will inundate the whole city on this side the river, as it has on the other, to the inexpressible additional misery of the poor people. The caravan which left for Damascus can neither advance nor return on account of the water. Yesterday four dead were carried out from the little passage opposite our house, making in all 14 dead from eight houses, and there are others now lying ill.

April 24. — The plague still raging with most destructive violence; the two servants in our next neighbour's house are both dead, and two horses left, I fear, to starve. A poor Armenian woman has just been here, to beg a little sugar for a little infant she picked up in the street this morning; and she says, another neighbour of her’s picked up two more. They have just been digging graves beside our house. Almost all the cotton is consumed, so that persons are wandering all over the city to find some, for burying their dead. Water not to be had at any price, nor a water-carrier to be seen. Oh, what heart-rending scenes sin has introduced into the world! Oh, when will the Lord come to put an end to these scenes of disorder, physical as well as moral. In one short month, not less than 30,000 souls have passed from time to eternity in this city, and yet, even now, no diminution apparently of deaths.

April 25. — To-day, three more from the same passage, making twenty-one from these houses. Such a disease I never heard of or witnessed; certainly not more than one in twenty recovers; every one attacked seems to die.

This has been a heart-rending day. The accounts from the Residency, and the falling of a wall, undermined by the water, obliged me to go out, and I found nothing but signs of death and desolation; hardly a soul in the streets, unless such as were carrying the dead, or themselves affected with plague, and at a number of doors, and in the lanes, bundles of clothes that had been taken from the dead, and put out. The Court of the Mosque was shut, having no place left for burying, and graves were digging in every direction in the roads, and in the unoccupied stables about the city. The water also has increased so much as to be within a few inches of inundating the city. Should this further calamity come on this side, as it has on the other, the height of human misery will be near its climax, for where they will then bury their dead I know not. There seems no diminution in the plague yet, that we can discern.

April 26. — For many days we have been unable to obtain any account of the number of deaths; but the Chaoosh of Major T has been with the Pasha this morning, who is in the greatest possible state of alarm, wishing to go, but not knowing how. One of his officers, whose business it is to inquire about the number of deaths daily, reported that it had reached 5,000, but yesterday was 3,000, and to-day less. Enormous as the mortality has been, I cannot but think this beyond the truth; yet it must be remembered, that the inundation kept immense masses of poor thronged together in the city, who, but for this, would have all fled in one direction or another.

April 27. — To-day all thoughts are turned from the plague to the inundation, which from the falling of a portion of the city wall on the north-west side last night, let the water in full stream into the city. The Jews' quarter is inundated, and 200 houses fell there last night: we are hourly expecting to hear, that every part of the city is overflowed. A part also of the wall of the citadel is fallen. And, in fact, such is the structure of the houses, that if the water remains near the foundations long, the city must become a mass of ruins.
This inundation has not only ruined an immense number of houses in the city, and been the cause of tens of thousands dying of the plague, but the whole harvest is destroyed. The barley, which was just ready to be reaped, is utterly gone, and every other kind of corn must likewise be ruined, so that for 30 miles all round Bagdad, not a grain of corn can be collected this year, and perhaps, if all was quiet this might be of no consequence, for from Mosul and Kourdistan it might easily come; but this will be prevented by the enemies of the Pasha who surround us. The poor are beginning to feel immense difficulty in the city, for all the shops are shut, and there is a great scarcity of wood for firing; and should the water now cause a general inundation of the whole city, the heart sickens at the contemplation of the scenes that must follow; for the houses of the poor are nothing but mud, scarcely one of which will be left standing.

April 28. — News more and more disastrous. The inundation has swept away 7,000 houses from one end of the city to the other, burying the sick, the dying, and the dead, with many of those in health, in one common grave. Those who have escaped, have brought their goods and the relics of their families, to the houses the plague has desolated, or desertion left unoccupied, and houses are yet falling in every direction.

May 1. — The Lord has brought us all in safety to the beginning of another month, through the most trying period of my life; yet the Lord has every day filled our mouth with praise, and enabled us to see his preserving hand. To-day, as I passed along the street, I saw numbers of dead bodies lying unburied, and the dogs eating with avidity the loathsome food. Oh! it made my very heart sink. The numbers of the dead can now be no longer ascertained, for most of the bodies are buried either in the houses or in the roads; yet amidst all this, the Lord suffers not the destroying angel to enter our dwelling; but we feel the Lord has commanded the man with the ink-horn to write us down to be spared, as this is one of the vials of God's wrath on his enemies.

May 8. — The Lord has this day manifested that the attack of my dear dear wife, is the plague, and of a very dangerous and malignant kind, so that our hearts are prostrate in the Lord's hand. As I think the infection can have only come through me, I have little hope of escaping, unless by the Lord's special intervention.

May 13. — My dearest wife has reached the light of another day, still quietly sinking without a sigh and without a groan. This my prayer for her in the night of my darkness the Lord has mercifully heard.

May 14. — This day dearest Mary's ransomed spirit took its seat among those dressed in white, and her body was consigned to the earth that gave it birth — a dark, heavy day to poor nature, but still the Lord was the light and stay of it.

May 15, 16. — I feel to-day many symptoms similar to those with which my dearest Mary's illness commenced — pains in the head and heaviness, pains in the back, and shooting pains through the glands and the arms. At another time I should think only of them as the result of a common cold; but now I know not how to discriminate, the beginnings are so similar.

May 19. — The water to-day has again fallen considerably in price, and as far as we can judge, God has mercifully nearly extinguished this desolating plague. I now feel quite satisfied the attack I had the other day was an attack of the plague, though very slight.

June 29. — My dear little baby has had an attack of purulent ophthalmia, which gives me much anxiety; for three or four days she had been recovering a little, when this trying attack seized her dear little eyes; she was quite unable to open either of them.

July 9. — The camp of those without the city is moving down to-day towards us; and we hear a continued firing of cannon. It is reported they are come within half an hour's march of the city.

July 28. Thursday. — Up to this time the shells and balls of the besiegers have done us no harm. Two shells have passed just over us. The one fell on the roof of the house of an Arab family at a little distance from us, who were all asleep, and on bursting killed three: one cannon ball has just passed over us, besides musket balls innumerable, only two of which, however, I have felt so fear as to endanger us. The one just passed by me and struck the wall, the other, by bending my head, passed just over me: yet dangerous as it seems in such circumstances to sleep on the roof, the suffocating heat of the rooms is insupportable. Famine is making its destructive way here among the poor. All the necessaries of life are raised from four to six times their usual price, and often are not to be obtained at all, and in addition there is no labour going on in the city: every shop is closed, and every one's concern is to take care of his life or property. They are constantly killing persons in the streets, without the least inquiry being made after the perpetrators; nay, they are publicly and notoriously known.

Aug. 19. Friday. — Every thing seems darkening in this wretched city. Numbers of poor people are crying at the gates to be let out, that they may not be starved in the city; but they will not let them go. All the necessaries of life have risen to five times their usual price, and the pressure of this is increased tenfold by the time at which it has occurred. The bricklayers, carpenters, every trade has entirely ceased its occupations in the city since the commencement of the plague; so that all day-labourers, such as weavers and others, are thrown out of their employments, and without means of gaining their bread. In addition to this, the Arabs are breaking into every house where they expect to find a little corn or rice, so that it is a difficult choice either to be without provisions in danger of starving, or of being broken in upon by such ruffians, and stripped. We intend to bury a little box, containing some rice, and flour, and dates, under ground, that in the event of their breaking in, we may yet secure food for a few days, which may give us time to look about.

Aug. 24. Thursday — Three months and ten days have now passed since the Lord took from me her who was on earth the supreme consolation of my life; and now, this day, he has taken from me my sweet little baby without a sigh, without the expression of pain during the whole of her illness; for this my heart can, even at this moment, bless the Lord; but it has left a void that has more than ever made the world appear a waste.

Sept. 9. Friday. — Every thing continues still increasing in price, and in an increased ratio the sufferings of the poor: if they leave the city they are stripped and driven back; if they remain they are starved; and even the dates are just come to an end, upon which for near three weeks, both the people and the cattle have been feeding. The Pasha has this day taken the jewels of his wives to sell, from which and some other signs, I am led to think his course is nearly run, and that ere long he will follow the fate of his predecessor.

Sept. 15. Thursday. — After a night of anxious suspense, the day has dawned in comparative peace; the cry that Ali Pasha's troops were entering the city, began soon after we had retired to rest, and continued till near morning. Now we hear that Daoud Pasha had fled from the house of Saleh Beg during the night and endeavoured to enter the citadel, but the soldiers would not admit him. He is now in the hands of the people of the Meidan. The Chaoush Kiahya of Ali Pasha has entered the city, and every one is in an awful state of suspense as to the future fate of the inhabitants, at least of the higher classes. I have just set up the English flag that they may know the inhabitant of the house is a stranger here, who has nothing to do with the strife of the city.

October 9. Lord's Day. — It is just one fortnight since the Lord has laid me on the bed of sickness and suffering; for nearly a fortnight previous an attack of typhus fever had been making its steady advances. I had lost all appetite, strength, and ability to sleep, accompanied by that strange overwhelming depression of mind that inclines one to weep one knows not why. But this day fortnight I was completely laid by, and this is the first day I have had my clothes on since.