Alas! what have I suffered, my dear Aza, since I consecrated to you my last knot? The loss of my Quipos was still wanting to complete my wretchedness; but when my officious persecutors perceived that work increased my disorder, they suffered me not to use it.

At last, they have restored to me the treasure of my tenderness; but I purchased it with my tears. Only this expression of my sentiments had I remaining, the sorrowful painting of my grief to you; and could I lose it and not despair?

My strange destiny has snatched from me even the relief which the unhappy find in speaking of their miseries; we are apt to think there is pity when they are heard, and from a participation of sorrow there arises some comfort: But I cannot make myself understood, and am surrounded with nothing but expressions of gaiety.

I cannot even enjoy that new kind of entertainment to which the inability of communicating my thoughts reduces me. Surrounded by people, whose attentive looks disturb the solicitude of my soul, I almost forgot the fairest present which Nature has made us; the power of rendering our ideas impenetrable, without the concurrence of our will. I am sometimes afraid that these curious savages discover the disadvantageous reflections with which I am inspired, by the oddness of their behaviour.

One moment destroys the opinion which another had given me of their character; for if I were to judge by the frequent opposition of their wills to mine, I should certainly conclude that they look on me as their slave, and their power would appear tyrannical.

Not to reckon upon infinite numbers of other contradictions, they refuse me, my dear Aza, even the necessary food for the sustenance of life, and the liberty of chusing what place I would lie in. They keep me, by a kind of violence, in the bed, which is become insupportable to me.

On the other side, if I reflect on the extreme concern they have shewn for the preservation of my life, and the respect with which the services they render me are accompanied; I am almost tempted to believe that they take me for a species superior to human kind.