day happening to be the next day after we came, we were exposed to sale; myself, with two of our mariners, were chosen for this mighty sovereign, but Montrano was the purchase of the Incas of Alsoore, who had sent a messenger thither also on the same errand. The reason that the great market was generally kept at Ekber, was not only because it was the largest of all the islands, but likewise that, lying at a more considerable distance from any of the others, than they did from one another, and more in the main sea, there was a greater probability of unhappy persons, distressed by weather, taking refuge there than in the others. I thought it a very great addition to my misfortunes, that I was to be separated from Montrano; and I believe he spoke no more than the truth, when he afterwards assured me it was so to him. I will not trouble you with what befel myself in a five-years servitude among these barbarous wretches. The charms of Montrano gained him, for some time, a milder fate. He had been employed in the vile offices, for which he was bought not many days before, as he was working in the garden of the Incas, a piece of paper, folded like a letter, fell at his feet; he took it up, and found it directed, in the Italian language, 'To the accomplished slave;' and seeing, no person near him, he concluded it must be thrown from some of the palace-windows. The oddness of the adventure at first gave him an infinite surprize; but curiosity, at length, getting the better of it, he unfolded the letter, in which he found a great jewel; rich, but ill set, according to the manner of so unpolite a country. But the value of this present was no ways considerable, when compared with the knowledge, that there was a person among these Pagans, with whom, there was a probability he might converse; casting his eyes, therefore, hastily over the letter, he found it contained these lines:
"SOME exclamations which I overheard you make the other day, informed me that you are my country-man;
