VII
Wherein I give the contents of one of the documents I found in the box, consisting of several Narrations, in which Ka In extricates himself from a dilemma and produces our pleasant and agreeable seasons; the origin of the Ice Age; the real but little known cause of the Great Flood; the lovers with the terrible eyes and the artful maidens; the origin of shaving the face and cutting the hair; the Tower of Babel. Also tracing my genealogy from Ka In to Li Ur, who wrote this document.
THOUGH I have studied all the known languages under all the instructors of prominence, and have acquired their proper pronunciation by speaking each language in all its dialects with the people who used them naturally, I have been compelled to translate the following documents by the application of my wide and varied knowledge thus gained of the idioms of the numerous classes with whom I have come in contact.
I have taken the liberty, in a few instances, to “fill in” in order to embellish the meager language in which the original is written, believing I shall be pardoned for thus doing when it is understood how much of interest has thereby been added to the narrative. Yet I have endeavored to retain the originality of expression and turn of sentence.