himself and his family as in the utmost danger. Were it possible to
represent those times exactly to those that did not see them, and give
the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere presented itself, it
must make just impressions upon their minds, and fill them with
surprise. London might well be said to be all in tears. The mourners did
not go about the streets,[37] indeed; for nobody put on black, or made a
formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends: but the voice of
mourning was truly heard in the streets. The shrieks of women and
children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their nearest
relations were perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard
as we passed the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest
heart in the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost
in every house, especially in the first part of the visitation; for
towards the latter end, men's hearts were hardened, and death was so
always before their eyes that they did not so much concern themselves
for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be
summoned the next hour.

Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even when
the sickness was chiefly there. And as the thing was new to me, as well
as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing to see those
streets, which were usually so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few
people to be seen in them, that if I had been a stranger, and at a loss
for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a whole street, I
mean of the by-streets, and see[38] nobody to direct me, except watchmen
set at the doors of such houses as were shut up; of which I shall speak
presently.

One day, being at that part of the town on some special business,
curiosity led me to observe things more than usually; and indeed I