by Percy Greg
ACROSS THE ZODIAC: The Story of a Wrecked Record
DECIPHERED, TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY PERCY GREG
AUTHOR OF "THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE" ETC.
"Thoughts he sends to each planet, Uranus, Venus, and Mars; Soars to the Centre to span it, Numbers the infinite Stars."
_Courthope's Paradise of Birds_
CONTENTS
I. SHIPWRECK.
II. OUTWARD BOUND.
III. THE UNTRAVELLED DEEP.
IV. A NEW WORLD.
V. LANGUAGE, LAWS, AND LIFE.
VI. AN OFFICIAL VISIT.
VII. ESCORT DUTY.
VIII. A FAITH AND ITS FOUNDER.
IX. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
X. WOMAN AND WEDLOCK.
XI. A COUNTRY DRIVE.
XII. ON THE RIVER.
XIII. THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT.
XIV. BY SEA.
XV. FUR-HUNTING.
XVI. TROUBLED WATERS.
XVII. PRESENTED AT COURT.
XVIII. A PRINCE'S PRESENT.
XIX. A COMPLETE ESTABLISHMENT.
XX. LIFE, SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC.
XXI. PRIVATE AUDIENCES.
XXII. PECULIAR INSTITUTIONS.
XXIII. CHARACTERISTICS.
XXIV. WINTER.
XXV. APOSTACY.
XXVI. TWILIGHT.
XXVII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
XXVIII. DARKER YET.
XXIX. AZRAEL.
XXX. FAREWELL.
CHAPTER I - SHIPWRECK.
Once only, in the occasional travelling of thirty years, did I loseany important article of luggage; and that loss occurred, not underthe haphazard, devil-take-the-hindmost confusion of English, or theelaborate misrule of Continental journeys, but through the absoluteperfection and democratic despotism of the American system. I had togive up a visit to the scenery of Cooper's best Indian novels--noslight sacrifice--and hasten at once to New York to repair the loss.This incident brought me, on an evening near the middle of September1874, on board a river steamboat starting from Albany, the capital ofthe State, for the Empire City. The banks of the lower Hudson are aswell worth seeing as those of the Rhine itself, but even America hasnot yet devised means of lighting them up at night, and consequently Ihad no amusement but such as I could find in the conversation of myfellow-travellers. With one of these, whose abstinence from personalquestions led me to take him for an Englishman, I spoke of my visit toNiagara--the one wonder of the world that answers its warranty--and toMontreal. As I spoke of the strong and general Canadian feeling ofloyalty to the English Crown and connection, a Yankee bystanderobserved--
"Wal, stranger, I reckon we could take 'em if we wanted tu!"
"Yes," I replied, "if you think them worth the price. But if you do,you rate them even more highly than they rate themselves; and Englishcolonists are not much behind the citizens of the model Republic inhonest self-esteem."
"Wal," he said, "how much du yew calc'late we shall hev to pay?"
"Not more, perhaps, than you can afford; only California, and everyAtlantic seaport from Portland to Galveston."
"Reckon yew may be about right, stranger," he said, falling back withtolerable good-humour; and, to do them justice, the bystanders seemedto think the retort no worse than the provocation deserved.
"I am sorry," said my friend, "you should have fallen in with sounpleasant a specimen of the character your countrymen ascribe withtoo much reason to Americans. I have been long in England, and nevermet with such discourtesy from any one who recognised me as anAmerican."
After this our conversation became less reserved; and I found that Iwas conversing with one of the most renowned officers of irregularcavalry in the late Confederate service--a service which, in theefficiency, brilliancy, and daring of that especial arm, has neverbeen surpassed since Maharbal's African Light Horse were recognised byfriends and foes as the finest corps in the small splendid army ofHannibal.
Colonel A---- (the reader will learn why I give neither his name norreal rank) spoke with some bitterness of the inquisitiveness whichrendered it impossible, he said, to trust an American with a secret,and very difficult to keep one without lying. We were presently joinedby Major B----, who had been employed during the war in the conduct ofmany critical communications, and had shown great ingenuity indevising and unravelling ciphers. On this subject a somewhatprotracted discussion arose. I inclined to the doctrine of Poe, thatno cipher can be devised which cannot be detected by an experiencedhand; my friends indicated simple methods of defeating the processeson which decipherers rely.
"Poe's theory," said the Major, "depends upon the frequent recurrenceof certain letters, syllables, and brief words in any given language;for instance, of _e_'s and _t_'s, _tion_ and _ed_, _a_, _and_, and_the_ in English. Now it is perfectly easy to introduce abbreviationsfor each of the common short words and terminations, and equally easyto baffle the decipherer's reliance thereon by inserting meaninglesssymbols to separate the words; by employing two signs for a commonletter, or so arranging your cipher that no one shall without extremedifficulty know which marks stand for single and which for severalcombined letters, where one letter ends and another begins."
After some debate, Colonel A---- wrote down and handed me two lines ina cipher whose character at once struck me as very remarkable.
"I grant," said I, "that these hieroglyphics might well puzzle a morepractised decipherer than myself. Still, I can point out even here aclue which might help detection. There occur, even in these two lines,three or four symbols which, from their size and complication, areevidently abbreviations. Again, the distinct forms are very few, andhave obviously been made to serve for different letters by some slightalterations devised upon a fixed rule. In a word, the cipher has beenconstructed upon a general principle; and though it may take a longtime to find out what that principle is, it affords a clue which,carefully followed out, will probably lead to detection."
"You have perceived," said Colonel A----, "a fact which it took mevery long to discover. I have not deciphered all the more difficultpassages of the manuscript from which I took this example; but I haveascertained the meaning of all its simple characters, and yourinference is certainly correct."
Here he stopped abruptly, as if he thought he had said too much, andthe subject dropped.
We reached New York early in the morning and separated, havingarranged to visit that afternoon a celebrated "spiritual" medium whowas then giving _seances_ in the Empire City, and of whom my friendhad heard and repeated to me several more or less marvellous stories.Our visit, however, was unsatisfactory; and as we came away ColonelA---- said--
"Well, I suppose this experience confirms you in your disbelief?"
"No," said I. "My first visits have generally been failures, and Ihave more than once been told that my own temperament is mostunfavourable to the success of a seance. Nevertheless, I have in somecases witnessed marvels perfectly inexplicable by known natural laws;and I have heard and read of others attested by evidence I certainlycannot consider inferior to my own."
"Why," he said, "I thought from your conversation last night you werea complete disbeliever."
"I believe," answered I, "in very little of what I have seen. But thatlittle is quite sufficient to dispose of the theory of pure imposture.On the other hand, there is nothing spiritual and nothing very humanin the pranks played by or in the presence of the mediums. They remindone more of the feats of traditionary goblins; mischievous, noisy,untrustworthy; insensible to ridicule, apparently delighting to makefools of men, and perfectly indifferent to having the tables turnedupon themselves."
<
br /> "But do you believe in goblins?"
"No," I replied; "no more than in table-turning ghosts, and less thanin apparitions. I am not bound to find either sceptics orspiritualists in plausible explanations. But when they insist on analternative to their respective theories, I suggest Puck as at leastequally credible with Satan, Shakespeare, or the parrot-cry ofimposture. It is the very extravagance of illogical temper to call onme to furnish an explanation _because_ I say 'we know far too littleof the thing itself to guess at its causes;' but of the currentguesses, imposture seems inconsistent with the evidence, and'spiritual agency' with the character of the phenomena."
"That," replied Colonel A----, "sounds common sense, and sounds evenmore commonplace. And yet, no one seems really to draw a strong, clearline between non-belief and disbelief. And you are the first and onlyman I ever met who hesitates to affirm the impossibility of that whichseems to him wildly improbable, contrary at once to received opinionand to his own experience, and contrary, moreover, to all knownnatural laws, and all inferences hitherto drawn from them. Your men ofscience dogmatise like divines, not only on things they have not seen,but on things they refuse to see; and your divines are half of themafraid of Satan, and the other half of science."
"The men of science have," I replied, "like every other class, theirespecial bias, their peculiar professional temptation. Theanti-religious bigotry of Positivists is quite as bitter andirrational as the theological bigotry of religious fanatics. Atpresent the two powers countervail and balance each other. But, asthree hundred years ago I should certainly have been burnt for aheretic, so fifty or a hundred years hence, could I live so long, Ishould be in equal apprehension of being burnt by some successor ofMr. Congreve, Mr. Harrison, or Professor Huxley, for presuming tobelieve in Providential government."
"The intolerance of incredulity," returned Colonel A----, "is a soresubject with me. I once witnessed a phenomenon which was to me quiteas extraordinary as any of the 'spiritual' performances. I have atthis moment in my possession apparently irresistible evidence of thereality of what then took place; and I am sure that there exists at apoint on the earth's surface, which unluckily I cannot define, strongcorroborative proof of my story. Nevertheless, the first persons whoheard it utterly ridiculed it, and were disposed to treat me either asa madman, or at best as an audacious trespasser on that privilege oflying which belonged to them as mariners. I told it afterwards tothree gentlemen of station, character, and intelligence, every one ofwhom had known me as soldier, and I hope as gentleman, for years; andin each case the result was a duel, which has silenced those whoimputed to me an unworthy and purposeless falsehood, but has left aheavy burden on my conscience, and has prevented me ever since fromrepeating what I know to be true and believe to be of greaterinterest, and in some sense of greater importance, than any scientificdiscovery of the last century. Since the last occasion on which I toldit seven years have elapsed, and I never have met any one but yourselfto whom I have thought it possible to disclose it."
"I have," I answered, "an intense interest in all occult phenomena;believing in regard to alleged magic, as the scientists say ofpractical science, that every one branch of such knowledge throwslight on others; and if there be nothing in your story which it ispersonally painful to relate, you need not be silenced by anyapprehension of discourteous criticism on my part."
"I assure you," he said, "I have no such wish now to tell the story asI had at first. It is now associated with the most painful incident ofmy life, and I have lost altogether that natural desire for sympathyand human interest in a matter deeply interesting to myself, which,like every one else, I felt at first, and which is, I suppose, themotive that prompts us all to relate often and early any occurrencethat has keenly affected us, in whatever manner. But I think that Ihave no right to suppress so remarkable a fact, if by telling it I canplace it effectually on record for the benefit of men sensible enoughto believe that it may have occurred, especially since somewhere inthe world there must yet exist proof that it did occur. If you willcome to my rooms in ---- Street tomorrow, Number 999, I will notpromise, but I think that I shall have made up my mind to tell youwhat I have to tell, and to place in your hands that portion of theevidence which is still at my command--evidence that has asignificance of its own, to which my experience is merely episodical."
I spent that evening with the family of a friend, one of severalformer officers of the Confederacy, whose friendship is the onepermanent and valuable result of my American tour. I mentioned theColonel's name, and my friend, the head of the family, having servedwith him through the Virginian campaigns, expressed the highestconfidence in his character, the highest opinion of his honour andveracity; but spoke with bitter regret and pain of the duels in whichhe had been engaged, especially of one which had been fatal; remarkingthat the motive in each instance remained unknown even to the seconds."I am sure," he said "that they were not, could not have been, foughtfor the one cause that would justify them and explain the secrecy ofthe quarrel--some question involving female honour or reputation. Ican hardly conceive that any one of his adversaries could have calledin question in any way the personal loyalty of Colonel A----; and, asyou remarked of General M----, it is too absurd for a man who hadfaced over and over again the fire of a whole brigade, who had ledcharges against fourfold numbers, to prove his personal courage withsword or pistol, or to think that any one would have doubted eitherhis spirit or his nerve had he refused to fight, whatever theprovocation. Moreover, in each case he was the challenger."
"Then these duels have injured him in Southern opinion, and haveprobably tended to isolate him from society?"
"No," he replied. "Deeply as they were regretted and disapproved, hisservices during the war were so brilliant, and his personal characterstands so high, that nothing could have induced his fellow-soldiers toput any social stigma upon him. To me he must know that he would bemost welcome. Yet, though we have lived in the same city for fiveyears, I have only encountered him three or four times in the street,and then he has passed with the fewest possible words, and has neithergiven me his address nor accepted my urgent invitations to visit ushere. I think that there is something in the story of those duels thatwill never be known, certainly something that has never been guessedyet. And I think that either the circumstances in which they must havehad their origin, or the duels themselves, have so weighed upon hisspirits, perhaps upon his conscience, that he has chosen to avoid hisformer friends, most of them also the friends of his antagonists.Though the war ruined him as utterly as any of the thousands ofSouthern gentlemen whom it has reduced from wealth to absolutepoverty, he has refused every employment which would bring him beforethe public eye."
"Is there," I asked, "any point of honour on which you could supposehim to be so exceptionally sensitive that he would think it necessaryto take the life of a man who touched him on that point, thoughafterwards his regret, if not repentance, might be keen enough tocrush his spirit or break his heart?"
The General paused for a moment, and his son then interposed--
"I have heard it said that Colonel A---- was in general the leastquarrelsome of Confederate officers; but that on more than oneoccasion, where his statement upon some point of fact had beenchallenged by a comrade, who did not intend to question his veracitybut simply the accuracy of his observation, their brother officers hadmuch trouble in preventing a serious difficulty."
The next day I called as agreed upon my new-found friend, and withsome reluctance he commenced his story.
"During the last campaign, in February 1865, I was sent by General Leewith despatches for Kirby Smith, then commanding beyond theMississippi. I was unable to return before the surrender, and, forreasons into which I need not enter, I believed myself to be markedout by the Federal Government for vengeance. If I had remained withintheir reach, I might have shared the fate of Wirz and other victims ofcalumnies which, once put in circulation during the war, theirofficial authors dared not retract at its close. Now I and others,wh
o, if captured in 1865, might probably have been hanged, are neithermolested nor even suspected of any other offence than that offighting, as our opponents fought, for the State to which ourallegiance was due. However, I thought it necessary to escape beforethe final surrender of our forces beyond the Mississippi. I made myway to Mexico, and, like one or two Southern officers of greaterdistinction than myself, entered the service of the EmperorMaximilian, not as mere soldiers of fortune, but because, knowingbetter than any but her Southern neighbours knew it the miserableanarchy of Mexico under the Republic, we regarded conquest as the onechance of regeneration for that country, and the Emperor Maximilian asa hero who had devoted himself to a task heroic at once in its dangerand difficulty--the restoration of a people with whom his house had acertain historical connection to a place among the nations of thecivilised world. After his fall, I should certainly have been shot hadI been caught by the Juarists in pursuit of me. I gained the Pacificcoast, and got on board an English vessel, whose captain--loading forSan Francisco--generously weighed anchor and sailed with but half acargo to give me a chance of safety. He transferred me a few daysafterwards to a Dutch vessel bound for Brisbane, for at that time Ithought of settling in Queensland. The crew was weak-handed, andconsisted chiefly of Lascars, Malays, and two or three Europeandesperadoes of all languages and of no country. Her master was barelycompetent to the ordinary duties of his command; and it was nosurprise to me when the first storm that we encountered drove uscompletely out of our course, nor was I much astonished that thecaptain was for some days, partly from fright and partly from drink,incapable of using his sextant to ascertain the position of the ship.One night we were awakened by a tremendous shock; and, to spare youthe details of a shipwreck, which have nothing to do with my story, wefound ourselves when day broke fast on a coral reef, about a mile froman island of no great size, and out of sight of all other land. Thesextant having been broken to pieces, I had no means of ascertainingthe position of this island, nor do I now know anything of it exceptthat it lay, in the month of August, within the region of thesoutheast trade winds. We pulled on shore, but, after exploring theisland, it was found to yield nothing attractive to seamen exceptcocoa-nuts, with which our crew had soon supplied themselves aslargely as they wished, and fish, which were abundant and easilycaught, and of which they were soon tired. The captain, therefore,when he had recovered his sobriety and his courage, had no greatdifficulty in inducing them to return to the ship, and endeavoureither to get her off or construct from her timbers a raft which,following the course of the winds, might, it was thought, bring theminto the track of vessels. This would take some time, and I meanwhilewas allowed to remain (my own wish) on _terra firma_; the noise, dirt,and foul smells of the vessel being, especially in that climate,intolerable.
"About ten o'clock in the morning of the 25th August 1867, I was lyingtowards the southern end of the island, on a little hillock tolerablyclear of trees, and facing a sort of glade or avenue, covered onlywith brush and young trees, which allowed me to see the sky withinperhaps twenty degrees of the horizon. Suddenly, looking up, I sawwhat appeared at first like a brilliant star considerably higher thanthe sun. It increased in size with amazing rapidity, till, in a veryfew seconds after its first appearance, it had a very perceptibledisc. For an instant it obscured the sun. In another moment atremendous shock temporarily deprived me of my senses, and I thinkthat more than an hour had elapsed before I recovered them. Sittingup, somewhat confused, and looking around me, I became aware that somestrange accident had occurred. In every direction I saw such traces ofhavoc as I had witnessed more than once when a Confederate forceholding an impenetrable woodland had been shelled at random for somehours with the largest guns that the enemy could bring into the field.Trees were torn and broken, branches scattered in all directions,fragments of stone, earth, and coral rock flung all around.Particularly I remember that a piece of metal of considerable size hadcut off the tops of two or three trees, and fixed itself at last onwhat was now the summit of one about a third of whose length had beenbroken off and lay on the ground. I soon perceived that thismiraculous bombardment had proceeded from a point to thenorth-eastward, the direction in which at that season and hour the sunwas visible. Proceeding thitherward, the evidences of destructionbecame every minute more marked, I might say more universal. Trees hadbeen thrown down, torn up by the roots, hurled against one another;rocks broken and flung to great distances, some even thrown up in theair, and so reversed in falling that, while again half buried in thesoil, they exposed what had been their undermost surface. In a word,before I had gone two miles I saw that the island had sustained ashock which might have been that of an earthquake, which certainlyequalled that of the most violent Central American earthquakes inseverity, but which had none of the special peculiarities of that kindof natural convulsion. Presently I came upon fragments of a shiningpale yellow metal, generally small, but in one or two cases ofremarkable size and shape, apparently torn from some sheet of greatthickness. In one case I found embedded between two such jaggedfragments a piece of remarkably hard impenetrable cement. At last Icame to a point from which through the destruction of the trees thesea was visible in the direction in which the ship had lain; but theship, as in a few moments I satisfied myself, had utterly disappeared.Reaching the beach, I found that the shock had driven the sea far upupon the land; fishes lying fifty yards inland, and everythingdrenched in salt water. At last, guided by the signs ofever-increasing devastation, I reached the point whence the mischiefhad proceeded. I can give no idea in words of what I there found. Theearth had been torn open, rooted up as if by a gigantic explosion. Insome places sharp-pointed fragments of the coral rock, which at adepth of several feet formed the bed of the island, were discerniblefar below the actual surface. At others, the surface itself was raisedseveral feet by _debris_ of every kind. What I may call thecrater--though it was no actual hole, but rather a cavity torn andthen filled up by falling fragments--was two or three hundred feet incircumference; and in this space I found considerable masses of thesame metallic substance, attached generally to pieces of the cement.After examining and puzzling myself over this strange scene for sometime, my next care was to seek traces of the ship and of her crew; andbefore long I saw just outside the coral reef what had been herbowsprit, and presently, floating on the sea, one of her masts, withthe sail attached. There could be little doubt that the shock hadextended to her, had driven her off the reef where she had been fixedinto the deep water outside, where she must have sunk immediately, andhad broken her spars. No traces of her crew were to be seen. They hadprobably been stunned at the same time that they were thrown into deepwater; and before I came in sight of the point where she had perished,whatever animal bodies were to be found must have been devoured by thesharks, which abounded in that neighbourhood. Dismay, perplexity, andhorror prevented my doing anything to solve my doubts or relieve myastonishment before the sun went down; and during the night my sleepwas broken by snatches of horrible dreams and intervals of waking,during which I marvelled over what I had seen, scarcely crediting mymemory or my senses. In the morning, I went back to the crater, andwith some tools that had been left on shore contrived to dig somewhatdeeply among the _debris_ with which it was filled. I found verylittle that could enlighten me except pieces of glass, of variousmetals, of wood, some of which seemed apparently to have been portionsof furniture; and one damaged but still entire relic, which Ipreserved and brought away with me."
Here the Colonel removed a newspaper which had covered a portion ofhis table, and showed me a metallic case beaten out of all shape, butapparently of what had been a silvery colour, very little rusted,though much soiled. This he opened, and I saw at once that it was ofenormous thickness and solidity, to which and to favouringcircumstances it owed its preservation in the general ruin hedescribed. That it had undergone some severe and violent shock therecould be no question. Beside the box lay a less damaged though stillseriously injured object, in which I recognised the resemblance of abook of
considerable thickness, and bound in metal like that of thecase. This I afterwards ascertained beyond doubt to be a metalloidalloy whereof the principal ingredient was aluminium, or somesubstance so closely resembling it as not to be distinguishable fromit by simple chemical tests. A friend to whom I submitted a smallportion broken off from the rest expressed no doubt that it was a kindof aluminium bronze, but inclined to believe that it contained noinconsiderable proportion of a metal with which chemists are as yetimperfectly acquainted; perhaps, he said, silicon; certainly somethingwhich had given to the alloy a hardness and tenacity unknown to anyfamiliar metallurgical compound.
"This," said my friend, opening the volume, "is a manuscript which wascontained in this case when I took it from among the debris of thecrater. I should have told you that I found there what I believed tobe fragments of human flesh and bone, but so crushed and mangled thatI could form no positive conclusion. My next care was to escape fromthe island, which I felt sure lay far from the ordinary course ofmerchant vessels. A boat which had brought me ashore--the smaller ofthe two belonging to the ship--had fortunately been left on the end ofthe island furthest from that on which the vessel had been driven, andhad, owing to its remoteness, though damaged, not been fatally injuredby the shock. I repaired this, made and fixed a mast, and with nolittle difficulty contrived to manufacture a sort of sail from stripsof bark woven together. Knowing that, even if I could sustain life onthe island, life under such circumstances would not be worth having, Iwas perfectly willing to embark upon a voyage in which I was wellaware the chances of death were at least as five to one. I caught andcontrived to smoke a quantity of fish sufficient to last me for afortnight, and filled a small cask with brackish but still drinkablewater. In this vessel, thus stored, I embarked about a fortnight afterthe day of the mysterious shock. On the second evening of my voyage Iwas caught by a gale which compelled me to lower the sail, and beforewhich I was driven for three days and nights, in what direction I canhardly guess. On the fourth morning the wind had fallen, and by noonit was a perfect calm. I need not describe what has been described byso many shipwrecked sailors,--the sufferings of a solitary voyager inan open boat under a tropical sun. The storm had supplied me withwater more than enough; so that I was spared that arch-torture ofthirst which seems, in the memory of such sufferers, to absorb allothers. Towards evening a slight breeze sprang up, and by morning Icame in sight of a vessel, which I contrived to board. Her crew,however, and even her captain, utterly discredited such part of mystrange story as I told them. On that point, however, I will say nomore than this: I will place this manuscript in your hands. I willgive you the key to such of its ciphers as I have been able to makeout. The language, I believe, for I am no scholar, is Latin of amediaeval type; but there are words which, if I rightly decipher them,are not Latin, and hardly seem to belong to any known language; mostof them, I fancy, quasi-scientific terms, invented to describe varioustechnical devices unknown to the world when the manuscript waswritten. I only make it a condition that you shall not publish thestory during my life; that if you show the manuscript or mention thetale in confidence to any one, you will strictly keep my secret; andthat if after my death, of which you shall be advised, you do publishit, you will afford no clue by which the donor could be confidentlyidentified."
"I promise," said I. "But I should like to ask you one question. Whatdo you conceive to have been the cause of the extraordinary shock youfelt and of the havoc you witnessed? What, in short, the nature of theoccurrence and the origin of the manuscript you entrust to my care?"
"Why need you ask me?" he returned. "You are as capable as myself ofdrawing a deduction from what I have told you, and I have told youeverything, I believe, that could assist you. The manuscript will tellthe rest."
"But," said I, "an actual eye-witness often receives from a number oflittle facts which he cannot remember, which are perhaps too minute tohave been actually and individually noted by him, an impression whichis more likely to be correct than any that could be formed by astranger on the fullest cross-questioning, on the closest examinationof what remains in the witness's memory. I should like to hear, beforeopening the manuscript, what you believe to have been its origin.
"I can only say," he answered, "that what must be inferred from themanuscript is what I had inferred before I opened it. That sameexplanation was the only one that ever occurred to me, even in thefirst night. It then seemed to me utterly incredible, but it is stillthe only conceivable explanation that my mind can suggest."
"Did you," asked I, "connect the shock and the relics, which I presumeyou know were not on the island before the shock, with the meteor andthe strange obscuration of the sun?"
"I certainly did," he said. "Having done so, there could be but oneconclusion as to the quarter from which the shock was received."
The examination and transcription of the manuscript, with all the helpafforded me by my friend's previous efforts, was the work of severalyears. There is, as the reader will see, more than one _hiatus valdedeflendus_, as the scholiasts have it, and there are passages inwhich, whether from the illegibility of the manuscript or theemployment of technical terms unknown to me, I cannot be certain ofthe correctness of my translation. Such, however, as it is, I give itto the world, having fulfilled, I believe, every one of the conditionsimposed upon me by my late and deeply regretted friend.
The character of the manuscript is very curious, and its translationwas exceedingly difficult. The material on which it is writtenresembles nothing used for such purposes on Earth. It is more like avery fine linen or silken web, but it is far closer in texture, andhas never been woven in any kind of loom at all like those employed inany manufacture known to history or archaeology. The letters, or moreproperly symbols, are minute, but executed with extraordinaryclearness. I should fancy that something more like a pencil than apen, but with a finer point than that of the finest pencil, wasemployed in the writing. Contractions and combinations are not merelyfrequent, but almost universal. There is scarcely an instance in whichfive consecutive letters are separately written, and there is nosingle line in which half a dozen contractions, often including fromfour to ten letters, do not occur. The pages are of the size of anordinary duodecimo, but contain some fifty lines per page, and perhapsone hundred and fifty letters in each line. What were probably thefirst half dozen pages have been utterly destroyed, and the next halfdozen are so mashed, tattered, and defaced, that only a few sentenceshere and there are legible. I have contrived, however, to combinethese into what I believe to be a substantially correct representationof the author's meaning. The Latin is of a monastic--sometimes almostcanine--quality, with many words which are not Latin at all. For therest, though here and there pages are illegible, and though somesymbols, especially those representing numbers or chemical compounds,are absolutely undecipherable, it has been possible to effect what Ihope will be found a clear and coherent translation. I have condensedthe narrative but have not altered or suppressed a line for fear ofoffending those who must be unreasonable, indeed, if they lay theoffence to my charge.
One word more. It is possible, if not likely, that some of thosefriends of the narrator, for whom the account was evidently written,may still be living, and that these pages may meet their eyes. If so,they may be able to solve the few problems that have entirely baffledme, and to explain, if they so choose, the secrets to which,intentionally or through the destruction of its introductory portion,the manuscript affords no clue.
I must add that these volumes contain only the first section of theMS. record. The rest, relating the incidents of a second voyage anddescribing another world, remains in my hands; and, should this partof the work excite general attention, the conclusion will, by myselfor by my executors, be given to the public. Otherwise, on my death, itwill be placed in the library of some national or scientificinstitution.
