Eight days after Easter, a priest of our order came from Asumpcion, accompanied by twelve soldiers. This man had been ordered to take upon himself the care of the colony in case he found me dead; if I was still sick, to act in my stead, while I sailed to the city. He was as much rejoiced at my being still alive, as I was at his arrival; for he dreaded to remain amongst the savages, to whom he was unaccustomed, having till then been always employed as lecturer on philosophy or theology. The continual reports concerning the approach of the cruel Tobas, the repeated noise of war trumpets, the sudden concourse of trembling women, the tormenting swarms of fleas and gnats, the wretchedness of his habitation, the heat of the air, and the noxious vapours arising from adjacent marshes, rendered his life intolerable; though he had come furnished with fresh bread, with wine, and other liquors, to nourish or refresh the body, and had even brought water with him, which I was always obliged to take from a stagnant pool. That he might not, therefore, be necessitated to remain whilst I returned to Asumpcion, it is incredible with how liberal a hand he daily dispensed from his stores whatever was calculated to refresh and strengthen me. Accustomed to the Indians, and to misery, I had as great an abhorrence of the city, as he had of the wretched and turbulent colony; so that at the end of eight days he was at liberty to return with most of the soldiers, a few only being reserved to watch in the colony. Scarce had he reached home when he was seized with a fit of sickness, which confined him to his bed for some months. If eight days' stay was sufficient to lay him prostrate, though he wanted no comfort, you cannot wonder that, after two years spent in extreme indigence and amidst continual disturbances, the ill state of my health obliged me to quit the colony.