nature ; for example, that they had from the Emperor a daily allowance of silver, not counted to them, but measured out in bulk ! So he now wrote to Father Matthew to inform him of his arrival. His letter was intrusted to certain Chinamen, but as he did not know the Chinese names of our fathers, nor the part of the city in which they lived, and as the letter was addressed in European characters, the bearers were unable to discover our people. At Easter however he wrote a second time, and this letter was taken by some Mahomedan who had made his escape from the city, for they also are debarred from going out or coming in, without the permission of the authorities. In this letter he explained the origin and object of his journey, and begged the fathers to devise some way of rescuing him from the prison in which he found himself at Socieu, and of restoring him to the delight of holding intercourse with his brethren, in place of being perpetually in the company of Saracens. He mentioned also his wish to return to India by the sea route, as usually followed by the Portuguese.
The fathers had long ere this been informed by the Superior's letters from India of Benedict's having started on this expedition, and every year they had been looking out for him, and asking diligently for news of him whenever one of those companies of merchants on their pretended embassy arrived at court. But till now they had never been able to learn any news of him, whether from not knowing the name under which he was travelling, or because the ambassadors of the preceding seasons really had never heard of him.
The arrival of his letter therefore gave great pleasure to the fathers at Peking. It was received late in the year, in the middle of November, and they lost no time in arranging to send a member of the Society to get him away some how or other and bring him to the capital. However on re-consideration they gave up that scheme, for the bringing an-
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