I had a visit yesterday from the Abbé Troche, who has the superintendence of the Catholic mission here; he was very pleasant; but nothing particular passed, as many others were present. My conversations with the Roman Catholic merchant I have before mentioned, are still very open and free. Oh! may the Lord water and bless them.

Oct. 17.—Several of the elder boys, who had fled from the plague with their parents, have been with me since their return. My heart feels deeply interested about them; yet I see not plainly my way. I certainly never felt teaching in a school to be my proper work, and now much less than ever; yet they need instruction and desire it, and I think they are attached to me. May the Lord give me a wise and understanding heart, that I may rightly see the service he requires of me. I much wish for the counsel of my dear brethren at Aleppo; and perhaps the Lord may soon send some of them to me.

Oct. 18.—I have heard to-day we are to have no other Roman Catholic bishop in the room of him who is dead; nor any French Consul, but only an agent; this may take off many restraints; for the late bishop had given out we were worse than either the Mohammedans or Jews, and this had made a great impression on his flock; for he was a very liberal man, and therefore influential among them. However, I very much question if things will now be kept under the same restraint; so that should the Lord lead me to open the school again, I should not be surprised if many Roman Catholics came; for they all acknowledge that our boys learned more in three months than theirs in two years. The new Pasha is likewise exceedingly desirous of cultivating the closest friendship with our Resident, who has most kindly offered me any aid he can possibly lend me; and besides all this, the letters I have this day received from England and Ireland, shew me that my very dear friends have been making provision for my school; so that altogether, it seems to me the Lord’s will I should try again; and in due time, when I am fit for other service, he may raise up help that will take this out of my hands. I desire to be ready to do any work, however humble and contrary to my nature, that I think the Lord appoints for me. I hear also, that at Aleppo, the French intend only having an Agent instead of a Consul; whereas, our government has just sent a Consul out to Damascus with an English merchant, and one to Aleppo, and last year we had a Consul established at Trebizond. I think Ali Pasha will do all in his power to promote the steam navigation of these rivers; and he is evidently a man of a very different character from the Georgians who preceded him. They cherished most of all the pride and pomp of Turkish power, with all its inveterate prejudices, ignorance, and narrowness of mind, so that if you had any business of the least difficulty, you could never get them to attend five minutes to it. But not so Ali Pasha: he apprehends with facility; and you at least have the satisfaction of knowing you are understood. He has been at Trieste, and in Hungary, and seems acquainted, to a limited extent, with several of the public journals of Europe. He dresses nearly as an European, and his brother-in-law quite so, with the exception of the hat; which is as yet very trying to the genuine Asiatics, who look on their own dress as that which it would be a sin to change. The Pasha also seems perfectly indifferent to hoarding money.

Things in the city are still very dear, arising from the harvest of last year not having been reaped, and various other causes. We have to pay three times the usual price for most things; but after such tremendous visitations as we have suffered, we cannot expect that things can return to their usual course in a day.

Oct. 22.—I have had with me to-day a gentleman who was formerly attached to Mr. Morier’s mission in Persia. He fled from the plague at Tabreez, and arrived at Kermanshah four days after dear brother Pfander left it, who, by his conversations in the caravan, had left so distinct an impression, that he thought Mohammed a liar, that when he reached Kermanshah, he found his situation very difficult, nay dangerous, and he was obliged hastily to quit it. He went to Hamadan, and remained there three days in the house of a priest, from whence he proceeded to Ispahan. All the villages between Hamadan and Ispahan are Armenian. The journey takes about ten days. When he arrived at Ispahan, Abbas Meerza being at Yezd, he went there, was treated with great honour and respect, and a firman given him to go where he liked: he returned to Ispahan, and from thence went to Tabreez, which place he reached before the plague broke out the second time. This account makes me long to hear from his own pen the course of the Lord’s dealings with him. The same gentleman told me that the plague in Tabreez was much worse the second than the first time. Kermanshah is absolutely destroyed, and the governor, a grandson of the king, is reported to have collected from the property of the dead five lacs of piasters. In Kourdistan, also, they say it has been dreadful. In Saggas, Banah, and Sulemania, he says the desolation is shocking. How wonderful God’s visitations on these nations are; it makes the soul that the Lord has appointed to be in the midst of them often say, Lord, let thy kingdom come; yea, speedily, that thy people may know peace and safety.

I have sent to see the number of the poor little boys of my school that remain, and I find that they amount to 25 out of 80, and that I may expect near 30, should I get a master for them. I shall, therefore, endeavour to accomplish this, the Lord enabling me, and when I feel strong enough to begin again.

I am very anxious about the dear N——’s at Tabreez, from whom I have not received a line. Abbas Meerza ordered large pits to be dug for those who died of the plague, and when they were full to have them covered in. The Ambassador, and the English, Russian, and other public functionaries, had fled, and from a packet that came from Capt. Campbell, who has now the charge of the mission since the death of Sir John Macdonald, we know that he was safe up to a late date.

Oct. 26.—I was much struck with an account which Mr. Swoboda, an Austrian merchant, gave me to-day, of a conversation he had with the brother-in-law of Ali Pasha. He said that now, in Stamboul, the Christians went to the mosque, and the Mohammedans to the Church; there was no difference. How strikingly this shows the rapid progress of that infidel spirit in these countries, which is spreading in Europe; surely these then are such signs as should keep us on the watch for our Lord.

Accounts have just come that the struggle has commenced at Damascus, that supreme seat of bigotry, between the new and the old regime, and it remains to be seen how it will terminate. I already hear of one or two Roman Catholic boys, who will now come to the school, who before, during the life of the bishop, were afraid. My health I also feel daily establishing; and that I shall soon be able to enter on real labour again, with the Lord’s blessing, I sincerely trust.

Oct. 27.—The affairs of the city appear daily more and more settling again; provisions are coming in in abundance, and the price gradually lowering. The roads also are becoming more open and safe: for all these signs of tranquility we bless the Lord and take courage, and trust we may yet serve him in this land of our pilgrimage. Also across the desert we hear the road is tranquil.