Arabia to Egypt; also the maritime communication on the Red Sea,
from India to Arabia and Egypt, was not inconsiderable. In all
these directions contagion made its way; and, doubtless,
Constantinople and the harbours of Asia Minor are to be regarded
as the foci of infection, whence it radiated to the most distant
seaports and islands.

To Constantinople the plague had been brought from the northern
coast of the Black Sea, after it had depopulated the countries
between those routes of commerce, and appeared as early as 1347 in
Cyprus, Sicily, Marseilles, and some of the seaports of Italy.
The remaining islands of the Mediterranean, particularly Sardinia,
Corsica, and Majorca, were visited in succession. Foci of
contagion existed also in full activity along the whole southern
coast of Europe; when, in January, 1348, the plague appeared in
Avignon, and in other cities in the south of France and north of
Italy, as well as in Spain.

The precise days of its eruption in the individual towns are no
longer to be ascertained; but it was not simultaneous; for in
Florence the disease appeared in the beginning of April, in Cesena
the 1st June, and place after place was attacked throughout the
whole year; so that the plague, after it had passed through the
whole of France and Germany--where, however, it did not make its
ravages until the following year--did not break out till August in
England, where it advanced so gradually, that a period of three
months elapsed before it reached London. The northern kingdoms
were attacked by it in 1349; Sweden, indeed, not until November of
that year, almost two years after its eruption in Avignon. Poland
received the plague in 1349, probably from Germany, if not from