At this period a sad event plunged my house into mourning. Letters from my family announced to me that my brother Robert had returned from Porto-Rico, but that soon after a serious illness had carried him to the grave. He died in the arms of my mother and sisters, in the small house of La Planche, where, as I said before, we had all been brought up. My excellent Anna, wept with us, and exerted every means that interesting affection could suggest to alleviate the grief my brother Henry and myself experienced from this melancholy bereavement. A few months afterwards a new source of sorrow fell to our lot. Our little social party at Jala-Jala consisted of my sister-in-law; of Delaunay, a young man from St. Malo, who had come from Bourbon to establish at Manilla some manufactories for baking sugar; of Bermigan, a young Spaniard; and my friend, Captain Gabriel Lafond, like myself, from Nantes. He had come to the Philippine islands on board the Fils de France, had passed some years in South America, and had occupied several places of distinction in the navy, as captain-commandant, until at last, after many adventures and vicissitudes, he came with a small fortune to Manilla, where he bought a vessel, and set sail for the Pacific Ocean, to fish for the balaté or sea-worm. He had scarcely readied the island of Tongatabou when the vessel struck upon the rocks that surround this island; he saved himself by swimming to the shore, having lost everything. From thence he went to the Marianne islands, where grief and bad food caused him to fall ill; he returned to Manilla, labouring under dysentry. I had him brought to my house, and whilst there attended to him with all the care a fellow-countryman and a good friend, endowed with sterling and amiable qualities, deserved. Our evenings were spent in amusing and instructive conversation. As we had all travelled a great deal, each had something to relate. During the day the invalids kept company with the ladies, while my brother and myself followed our respective avocations. But soon, alas! a shocking event disturbed the calm that reigned at Jala-Jala. Bermigan fell so dangerously ill, that a few days sufficed to convince me there was no hope of saving him. I shall never forget the fatal night: we were all assembled in the drawing-room, grief and consternation were in every heart and pourtrayed in every countenance; in an adjoining room a few short steps from us, we heard the death-rattle of poor Bermigan, who had only a few minutes to live. My excellent friend, Lafond, whom sickness had reduced almost to the last stage, broke silence, and said: "Well! poor Bermigan goes to-day, and in a few days, perhaps to-morrow, it will be my turn. Just see! my dear Don Pablo; I may almost say that I no longer exist. Look at my feet--my body! I am a mere skeleton; I can scarcely take any food. Ah! it is better to be dead than live like this!"