18, having gone one morning with my brothers
to take a walk among the woods behind our cottage, I found a tree
covered with blossoms as white as snow, and which had a delicious smell.
We gathered a great quantity of them, which we carried home; but these
flowers, as we afterwards found by sad experience, contained a
deleterious poison. Their strong and pungent odour caused violent pains
in the head, forerunners of a malignant fever, which brought us within
two steps of the grave. Two days after my young brothers were seized;
fortunately my father arrived on the following day, and removed them to
Senegal.

Now then I was alone with my old negro Etienne in the island of Safal,
far from my family, isolated in the midst of a desert island, in which
the birds, the wolves, and the tigers, composed the sole population. I
gave free course to my tears and sorrows. The civilized world, said I to
myself, is far from me, an immense river separates me from my friends.
Alas! what comfort can I find in this frightful solitude? What can I do
upon this wretched earth? But although I had said I was unfortunate, was
I not necessary to my unhappy father? Had I not promised to assist him
in the education of his children, whom cruel death had deprived of their
mother? Yes! yes! I was too sensible my life was yet necessary. Engaged
in these melancholy reflections, I fell into a depression of mind which
it would be difficult to describe. Next morning the tumult of my
thoughts led me to the banks of the river, where the preceding evening I
had seen the canoe carry away my father and my young brothers. There I
fixed my humid eyes upon the expanse of water without seeing any thing
but a horrible immensity; then, as recovered from my sorrow, I turned to
the neighbouring fields to greet the flowers and plants which the sun
was just beginning to gild. They were my friends, my companions; they
alone could yet alleviate my melancholy, and render my loneliness
supportable. At last the star of day arising above the horizon,
admonished me to resume my labours.

Having returned to the cottage, I went to the harvest with Etienne. For
the space of two days, I continued at my accustomed occupation, but on
the morning of the third, on returning from the plantation to the house,
I felt myself suddenly seized with a violent pain in my head. As soon as
I reached home I lay down. On the morning I found myself unable to rise
out of bed; a burning fever had manife