My Quipos are almost exhausted, my dear Aza; they appear so few that I am almost afraid to use them: When I sit down to knot, the fear of their being at an end stops me; so weak am I, as if I could increase by sparing them. In losing them I shall lose the sole pleasure of my life, the support of my being; nothing will then alleviate the uneasiness of your absence, but I shall sink under my distress.

I tasted a most refined pleasure in preserving, by their means, the memory of every secret motion of my heart, which by them offered its homage to thee. My design was to have set down in my remembrance the principal customs of this singular nation, in order to amuse your leisure hours in future happy times. Alas! I have little hopes now left of ever executing my project.

If I at present find so great a difficulty in putting my thoughts in order, how shall I hereafter call them together without any foreign assistance? It is true, they offer me one, but the execution of it is so difficult, that I think it impossible.

The Cacique has brought me one of his country savages, who daily gives me lessons in his tongue, and teaches me the method of giving a kind of assistance to thought; which is done by drawing small figures, that they call Letters, with a feather, upon a thin substance called Paper. To these figures they give names; and those names put together represent the sound of words. But these names and sounds seem so similar to each other, that, if I do in a length of time succeed in learning them, I am sure it will cost me an infinity of labour. This poor savage takes an incredible deal of pains to teach me, and I take still more to learn; yet my progress is so slow, that I would give up the design, if I knew of any other method by which I could be informed of your fate and my own.