“To this end the Vali chose Major Bekir Effendi, who was charged with our surveillance and with the execution of this mission. As soon as he arrived, Bekir dismissed our servants and cooks and reduced our rations. I was in bed, suffering from the pain of this abscess, when Bekir came and told me the orders he had received, which he did in a severe voice, with a rough tone and without the least touch of feeling. He told us that we must be contented with a little soup and with vegetables, which would be served to us in one of those bowls used by the soldiers, and that we were strictly forbidden to procure other food than that which was provided for us. At the same time he forbade us to have our linen washed, a task which each one of us must perform for himself. Besides this, he took away the inkstand, pen and paper that was at our disposition, and everything necessary for correspondence. Luckily, I had burned your letters, although they contained nothing compromising, but complications might have arisen from them if they had fallen into their hands. “This part of his mission accomplished, Major Bekir had the wife and child of Haïroullah Effendi, who were occupying a separate house, sent off to Mecca that very night. Our servants and cooks followed very soon afterwards. “The treatment to which we are submitted is one means of many to get rid of us. For my companions have always been accustomed to luxury and ease, and even though hunger may oblige them to eat the poor food given to the soldiers, their health cannot endure such a regimen, and they will certainly end by succumbing, but only after how much suffering and misery! I cannot give you an idea of the melancholy into which they are plunged. They are constantly praying Heaven for their deliverance. As to me, what I find the most painful, is being deprived of my servant, whom they removed by force, and whose attentions were more than ever necessary to me at a moment when my state of health has got so much worse. “The refusal of the Governor‐General of Mecca to send a doctor, and the speech and most unjustifiable conduct of Bekir, contributed not a little to the aggravation of my condition. I had no other consolation than the hope of quitting this life and of at last succumbing to the sufferings that I endured. But it cannot be helped; the supreme hour has not yet come, and I must still suffer. I had lost all hope, although Heaven in its mercy often reserves consolations for the unhappy, and relief for their sorrows.