Joseph Brigniel, though long accustomed to the Abipones, thought the ferocity of the inhabitants, the perpetual incursions or threats of the enemy, and the wretchedness of the place itself, quite intolerable; and indeed, not many months after, he had a dangerous and obstinate fit of sickness. He told many of his friends in letters that he could not conceive how I had been able to remain for two years in so calamitous, turbulent, and perilous a situation; and in one addressed to the Governor declared that the preservation of this colony was, under God, to be attributed to my patience, vigilance, and industry. I should have forborn to mention this honest encomium, were it not to refute the calumnies of certain individuals, who, never having performed any praiseworthy actions themselves, are impelled by envy or malice secretly to detract from the good deeds of others, when those who might convict them of falsehood are far away. Let me now proceed to relate my departure from the colony. The decaying and shattered bark in which my successor Brigniel had come, served to convey me up the river Paraguay, in company with a few soldiers, to the city of Asumpcion. We performed a voyage of seventy leagues in eight days, using both oars and sails. The night before we reached port, a furious tempest drove us against a very lofty bank, the height of which we at length gained by means of planks stuck into the ground, and supported by the vessel. Sitting in the fields, we had for some hours to endure a storm of rain and loud thunder, and though completely drenched, esteemed ourselves fortunate in having escaped being swallowed up by the waves, or struck dead by lightning. As the soldiers were gone, and the sailors forced to remain to look after the skiff, I set off on foot and alone, unless you call rain, wind, and thunder my companions; and after travelling through a country swollen with torrents, reached the metropolis a little before noon. The kindness of my former associates in our college, who all ran to embrace me, effaced from my mind the perils of the voyage, and the distress of the preceding night. I went to the Governor, and told him as a friend what measures he ought to pursue for the preservation of the colony and the Fathers, and for the coercion of the savages. The good man acquiesced in my counsels, promised much, and performed almost nothing: for, from letters written to me subsequently by Father Brigniel, I understood that affairs continued in the same state as before my departure, or rather that they grew worse and worse.