I have made a good collection of coleoptera, and have procured a number of excessively rare and beautiful species. I have also obtained some very rare and interesting conchological specimens. As for animals, I have but few; some monkeys and a good many serpents.
In a week I shall be settled in a new place, where I intend to spend four or five months, and by the end of the year I trust to have 4000 insects.
The Mekon is a large and beautiful stream, full of rocks, which form frightful rapids in the rainy season. I shall descend it at the season when the waters are high, and when the navigation though dangerous is easy and rapid. I can then reach Cambodia in a month if I like, but I am undecided whether or not I shall go eastward towards the 15th degree of latitude.
It seems to me, my dear brother, that my happiness would be complete if I could have good news of you all; but, alas! more than a year must elapse before I shall hear. The last letters I received were in January; yet I am resigned, since I willingly embraced this career, which has been the dream of my whole life, for you remember how in our young days, when we still had the happiness of a tender mother to guide us, and impress on us, by her example, virtuous principles, religion, and the love of mankind, we delighted to roam the woods of our dear native place, to draw from nature, and how I stuffed the birds that we took in snares or nets.
That time is long passed, my friend, but I trust in God, who will I hope watch over you. I think of you every day in my solitude, and in the long nights when we bivouac beside the fires lighted to keep off the wild beasts, a scene of which I will send you a drawing before long.
What are your dear children doing--I picture to myself all the happiness they give you and your dear Jenny; she is well I hope. Ah! my friend, protect them all with a tender affection, and endeavour by your love, your care, and your example, to render them all happy and good.
There is one subject on which I can hardly write, that of our dear old father; it would make me too sad to think he was not happy; console him for my absence, write to him often, repeat to him how much I love him, that he is always associated in my thoughts with the memory of our good and worthy mother. But I have no need to recommend all this to you: have you not ever been good to him, a worthy son? therefore I am without anxiety on this point.