Fancy my delight, after the glue had dried sufficiently to make an examination of the writing, to find that this ancient volume was a palimpsest!
I felt instinctively that this dissertation upon the nature of the soul was the sick man’s dream of some poor dweller in the double darkness of ignorance and superstition. So I made haste to wash away his fervid outpourings by a plentiful use of something still hotter—namely, hot water and soap; for my studies had told me that the ink used by the people of his time and generation contained no mordant, and was, in fact, only lamp-black and grease.
I now got at the real contents of this venerable book.
The writing was dim and shadowy. I did not let that trouble me, for, skilled as I am in the chemist’s art, I lost no time in applying an acid which restored the writing to its old time blackness.
I had some difficulty in deciphering the language in which it was written—the ancient Phoenician—but, with the aid of several scores of dictionaries, I finally rendered it into a modern tongue, passing it through the Aramaic, thence into the Greek, and, finally, into my own tongue.
When at last I had gotten over all difficulties and could read the descriptions with that ease necessary to bring out their full sense, I was nearly beside myself with joy.
It was the story of a voyage made by a venturesome navigator, six thousand years ago, when the earth was still in its infancy; still hot in some places; in fact, only the highest mountains and table lands had cooled off enough to be habitable.
Pushing off from the shores of Arabia, this bold captain had pointed his ship towards the rising sun.
And, wonder of wonders! after many awful perils and terrible privations, he had entered waters which, to his almost unutterable amazement, grew warmer and warmer as he sailed over them.
At first his men refused to proceed any farther, but by dint of threats, persuasion and goodly presents, the bold sailor went his way, wondering and rejoicing. After many days he entered a body of water, which, from his descriptions, I at once recognized as the China Sea. But now all further advance was impossible.