Usbek to Nessir, at Ispahan

WE are now at Paris, that proud rival of the city of the sun.

When I left Smyrna, I commissioned my friend Ibben to forward to you a box, containing some presents for you, which you will receive along with this letter. Although I am five or six hundred leagues distant from him, we exchange news as easily as if he were at Ispahan and I at Koum. I send my letters to Marseilles, whence vessels are constantly sailing for Smyrna: from Smyrna he dispatches those destined for Persia by the Armenian caravans which start every day for Ispahan.

Rica enjoys the best of health: the strength of his constitution, his youth, and his natural gayety enable him to pass unhurt through every ordeal.

I, however, am far from well; depressed both in body and mind, I surrender myself to reflections which become daily more melancholy. My impaired health makes me long for my own land, and adds to the strangeness of this one.

But I conjure you, dear Nessir, on no account to let my wives know how depressed I am. If they love me, I would spare their tears; and if not, I have no desire to increase their frowardness.

If my eunuchs believed me in danger, if they dared to hope that a base compliance would pass unpunished, they would soon cease to be deaf to the seductive voice of that sex, which can melt rocks, and move inanimate things.

Farewell, Nessir. It is a great happiness to me that I can confide in you.

PARIS, the 5th of the moon of Chahban, 1712.

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