Almost the first object that my eyes rested upon, as soon as we left our retreat under the rocks, was a large round mass of dark-looking substance, a hundred yards away. In amazement I walked towards the spot where it lay hissing and steaming on the bare, wet rocks, surrounded by a thick coating of hailstones, which the hot sun was rapidly melting. It was a meteorolite of unusual dimensions, measuring exactly three feet nine inches in height, and was shaped like a huge gourd. A large crack extended completely down one side, about an inch across in its widest part.
I cautioned the Arabs to preserve the strictest secrecy, and made them swear by the Prophet's beard that they would reveal to no man what they had seen, and then we returned to Biskra. It was my intention to obtain a few suitable tools and requisites, and then return to the meteorolite at once to investigate. It would evidently take some hours to cool; besides, if we did not get back, search parties would be scouring the desert in quest of us, and they might by chance discover this wonderful "stone." I felt already that this stone belonged to me. My interest in it was all-absorbing.
Early the next morning, with three Arabs, I went off, armed with wedges, a heavy hammer, some drills, a quantity of gunpowder, and fuse. We found the stone just as we left it on the previous day, and evidently still unvisited by man.
I first of all tried to force open the crack with the wedges, but the substance was exceedingly tough, the appliances at my command very crude, and I made no progress. Then I set my followers to work to bore two holes into the "stone," and fill them with gunpowder. This plan worked admirably—the drill cutting its way through the soft spongy mass with great quickness, and I was soon ready to fire my fuse, and retire behind the rocks to wait events.
It was an anxious moment for me. We had not to wait long for the reports, which sounded like a couple of rifle cracks, and then we ran forward to examine our prize. Alas! it was shattered into fragments, some of them blown to a distance of many yards.
The charges were too strong. I was profoundly disappointed, and set the Arabs to work to gather up the largest pieces and load our camels with them.
I was sitting dejectedly enough upon the sand, more interested in the action of a pair of vultures than in the doings of my men, when Achmed, one of my Arabs, made his appearance, holding in his arms a very curious-looking fragment of the meteorolite. It looked like a rusty piece of iron ore, oblong in shape, and had evidently undergone great pressure. Examination told me that this substance was iron, and its disproportionate lightness, together with a blow from the hammer, revealed the fact that it was not solid! It looked for all the world like a large conical shot. I set off alone on my camel to the oasis, all impatient to get home and examine my prize.
I could neither eat nor sleep until I had finished my task. Locking myself in my room, I began my investigation with a singular presentiment that I was on the eve of some important discovery. Nor were my feelings unjustified by events. With the aid of a hammer and chisel, after some considerable trouble and labour, I broke open this singular-looking mass of battered rusty iron, and its strange contents rolled out on to the table! Of what were they composed? Nothing but a long and carefully-folded pile of papers—so tightly packed that they might have been under hydraulic pressure; but their appearance filled me with the intensest surprise and most utter amazement! Here and there the edges were burnt and charred, but otherwise they were in a singularly good state of preservation, and the writing upon them was almost as legible as when it was penned. The paper had evidently been made on earth, for it bore the watermark of a well-known London firm.
The most singular part of all this strange occurrence, however, remains now to be told. Most of these manuscripts were written in a good, bold, upright hand, and they were addressed and dated from
"The City of Edos, Planet of Mars, or Gathma. December the 9th, 1878."