SOME time since, a Distich, according to the Juml form or rule,* was communicated to you, and has, no doubt, been comprehended by you. A scroll, exhibiting the details of that rule, and which will make you completely acquainted with the subject, is now enclosed. Nobody besides yourself is to be admitted to a knowledge of it; and when you have any thing of a particular or secret nature to communicate, you must write in this cypher.

N.B. At the end of the foregoing letter a Distich is added, which I take to be the Distich referred to in the beginning of it, though that would seem to have been transmitted on a former occasion. Of the scroll spoken of, nothing appears. I omit the Distich, because I am, at present, unable to make out the meaning of it.

The title of this letter assigns it to Mahommed Ghous: but I incline to think that Ghous is an error of my transcriber, for Ghyâs. If not, I am unable to say who Mahommed Ghous was, or what diplomatic situation he filled; for such, it is reasonable to suppose, must have been his employment, from the injunction given him to write occasionally in cypher.