An unexpected opportunity presents itself, my dear Jenny, to send you a few words before proceeding farther. A new year is about to commence: may you, my dear little sister, experience in its course only joy and satisfaction; may your interesting little family cause you unmixed happiness; in a word, I desire every possible good for you. As for myself, I ask nothing but the happiness of seeing you all again. Think occasionally of the poor traveller whom every day removes farther and farther from civilization, and who for eighteen months or perhaps two years is about to live alone in a strange place, where I shall not have even the consolation of meeting those good missionaries as at Brelum and in Cambodia. You know my manner of life, so I shall not repeat it. The heat and the musquitoes make a real hell of this place. Those who praise it must have hard heads and skins, or else must be comfortably lodged, and surrounded by an army of slaves. They know nothing but its enjoyments. If there is one pleasant hour in the morning and another in the evening, one must think oneself lucky, for often there is no peace night or day. My pleasures are, first, liberty, that precious thing without which man cannot be happy, and for which so many have fought and will fight still; then, seeing so much that is beautiful, grand, and new, and which no one has seen before me. From these I draw my contentment. Thank God! my health is as good as when I left you, although three years have passed over me. Soon I shall be in Laos, and then, what strange things I shall see daily! what curious beings I shall meet, to whom I shall be equally an object of curiosity! I shall have delightful days, then, perhaps, sad ones, if my servants have the fever, which happens at intervals. If only to enliven these solitudes, I could have you here, my dear Jenny, or if I could sing like you, or even like a nightingale! Sometimes I do make use of my falsetto voice, and hum the beautiful airs of Béranger, and feel strengthened by the sublime odes of that great man of genius. Two or three thin volumes--I say thin, for the white ants have eaten the greater part of them--and a few old newspapers (new to me) compose my library; but I have blank paper, which I fill as I best can; it is an amusement, at least; and if it turn out of no other use than to serve to amuse you all, I shall be satisfied, for I am not ambitious. I dream as I smoke my pipe, for I must confess that I smoke more than ever. Well! the musquitoes and thorns will still be my companions for a long time. It is my own choice, and I shall never complain as long as God grants to all of you the joy and happiness I wish for you. How I shall accomplish the long journey before me I know not; probably with oxen and elephants; but if even I have to go on foot I care not, so that I reach there, for I have determined to drive away even the devil, should I meet him here. TO M. CHARLES MOUHOT.