in another part he writes this:
Early in June we heard at Aleppo that the plague had broken out at Gaza, and that the number of deaths there reached over a thousand a day. On travelling to Hims I found that the plague had broken out there: about three hundred persons died of it on the day that I arrived. So I went on to Damascus, and arrived there on a Thursday. The inhabitants had then been fasting for three days; on the Friday they went out to the mosque of the Footprints, as we have related in the first book, and God eased them of the plague [p. 68]. The number of deaths among them reached a maximum of 2,400 a day. Thereafter I journeyed to ‘Ajalún and thence to Jerusalem, where I found that the ravages of the plague had ceased. We revisited Hebron, and thence went to Gaza, the greater part of which we found deserted because of the number of those who died there of the plague. I was told by the qádí that the number of deaths there reached 1,100 a day. We continued our journey overland to Damietta, and on to Alexandria. Here we found that the plague was diminishing in intensity, though the number of deaths had previously reached a thousand and eighty a day. I then travelled to Cairo, where I was told that the number of deaths during the epidemic rose to twenty-one thousand a day.11 From Cairo I travelled through the Sa‘íd [Upper Egypt] to ‘Aydháb, whence I took ship to Judda, ana thence reached Mecca on 22nd Sha‘bán of the year 49 [16th November 1348].