 Chapter 1 of the Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, Raven Edition, Vol. 2 This is a LibriBox recording. All LibriBox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriBox.org. The Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, Raven Edition, Vol. 2 The Perloined Letter Neil Sapientier Odiosius Akumine Nimio, Seneca At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-something, I was enjoying the two-fold luxury of meditation and amirsham in company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library or book closet, Atreusumé No. 33, Rue du No, Faubourg, Saint-Germain. For one hour, at least, we had maintained a profound silence, while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening. I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rojet. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G., the prefect of the Parisian police. We gave him a hearty welcome, for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again without doing so upon G.'s saying that he had called to consult us or rather to ask the opinion of my friend about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble. If it is any point requiring reflection, observed Dupin, as he forebore to incandle the wick, we shall examine it to better purpose in the dark. That is another of your odd notions, said the prefect, who had a fashion of calling everything odd that was beyond his comprehension and thus lived amid an absolute legion of oddities. Very true, said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe and rolled towards him a comfortable chair. And what is the difficulty now, I asked. Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope. Oh no, nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves. But then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it because it is so excessively odd. Simple and odd, said Dupin. Why, yes, and not exactly that either. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple and yet baffles us all together. Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault, said my friend. What nonsense do you talk, said the prefect, laughing heartily. Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain, said Dupin. Oh good heavens, who ever heard of such an idea? A little too self-evident. Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha, ho-ho-ho! wrote our visitor, profoundly amused. Oh Dupin, you will be the death of me yet. And what, after all, is the matter on hand, I asked? Why, I will tell you, replied the prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. I will tell you in a few words, but before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that I confided it to any one. Proceed, said I. Or not, said Dupin. Well then I have received personal information from a very high quarter that a certain document of the last importance has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known, this beyond a doubt, he was seen to take it. It is known also that it still remains in his possession. How is this known, asked Dupin? It is clearly inferred, replied the prefect, from the nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber's possession, that is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to employ it. Be a little more explicit, I said. Well I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable. The prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy. Still I do not quite understand, said Dupin. No, well the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honour of a personage of most exalted station, and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honour and peace are so jeopardised. But this ascendancy, I interposed, would depend upon the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare? The thief, said G, is the minister D, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question, a letter to be frank, had been received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavour to thrust it in a drawer she was forced to place it open as it was upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters the minister D. His link's eye immediately perceives the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses for some fifteen minutes upon the public affairs. At length in taking leave he takes also from the table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but of course, dared not call attention to the act the presence of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The minister decamped, leaving his own letter one of no importance upon the table. Here, then, said Dupin to me, you have precisely what you demand to make the ascendancy complete, the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Yes, replied the prefect, and the power thus attained has, for some months past, been wielded for political purposes to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced every day of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to me. Then whom, said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, no more sagacious agent could I suppose be desired or even imagined? You flatter me, replied the prefect, but it is possible that some such opinion may have been entertained. It is clear, said I, as you observe, that the letter is still in possession of the minister, since it is this possession and not any employment of the letter which bestows the power, with the employment the power departs. True, said G., and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the minister's hotel, and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect our design. But, said I, you are quite outfaked in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before. Oh, yes, and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a distance from their master's apartment and, being chiefly neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed during the greater part of which I have not been engaged personally in ransacking the D Hotel. My honour is interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible that the paper can be concealed. But is it not possible, I suggested, that although the letter may be in possession of the minister as it unquestionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises? This is barely possible," said Dupin. The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D is known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the document its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice a point of nearly equal importance with its possession. Its susceptibility of being produced," said I. That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin. True, I observed, the paper is clearly then upon the premises. As for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that as out of the question. Entirely," said the prefect, he has been twice way-laid as if by foot-pads and his person rigorously searched under my own inspection. You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. D, I presume, is not altogether a fool, and if not, must have anticipated these way-layings as a matter of course. Not altogether a fool," said D, but then he's a poet, which I take to be only one removed from a fool. True, said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his mirsham, although I have been guilty of certain dog-roll myself. Suppose you detail, said I, the particulars of your search. Why, the fact is, we took our time and we searched everywhere. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building, room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to search. We examined first the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer, and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a thing as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man is adult who permits a secret drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk of space to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs, the cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the tops. Why so? Sometimes the top of a table or other similarly arranged piece of furniture is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article. Then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bed-posts are employed in the same way. But could not the cavity be detected by sounding? I asked. By no means if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged to proceed without noise. But you could not have removed, you could not have taken to pieces all articles of furniture in which it could have been possible to make a deposit in the manner you mentioned. A letter may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large knitting needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs? Certainly not, but we did better. We examined the rungs of every chair in the hotel, and indeed the jointings of every description of furniture by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluing, any unusual gapping in the joints would have sufficed to ensure detection. I presume you looked to the mirrors between the boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed clothes as well as the curtains and carpets. That, of course, and when we had absolutely completed every particle of furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments which we numbered so that none might be missed. Then we scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining with the microscope as before. The two houses adjoining, I exclaimed. You must have had a great deal of trouble. We had, but the reward offered is prodigious. You include the grounds about the houses? All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks and found it undisturbed. You looked among these papers, of course, and into the books of the library? Certainly we opened every package and parcel. We not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake according to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every book cover with the most accurate ad-measurement and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the facts should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed longitudinally with the needles. You explored the floors beneath the carpets? Beyond doubt, we removed every carpet and examined the boards with the microscope. And the paper on the walls? Yes. You looked into the cellars? We did. Then, I said, you have been making a miscalculation and the letter is not upon the premises as you suppose. I fear you are right there, said the prefect, and now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do? To make a thorough research of the premises. That is absolutely needless, reply G. I am not more sure than I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the hotel. I have no better advice to give you, said Dupin. You have, of course, an accurate description of the letter? Oh, yes! And hear the prefect producing a memorandum book preceded to read aloud a minute account of the internal and especially of the external appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before. In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said, Well, but gee, what of the perloined letter? I presume you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the minister? Confound him, say I, yes. I made the re-examination, however, as Dupin suggested, but it was all labor lost as I knew it would be. How much was the reward offered, did you say? Asked Dupin. Why, a very great deal, a very liberal reward. I don't like to say how much precisely, but one thing I will say that I wouldn't mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to anyone who could obtain me that letter. The fact is it is becoming of more and more importance every day, and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were troubled, however, I could do no more than I have done. Why, yes, said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his mirsham. I really think, gee, you have not exerted yourself to the utmost in this matter. You might do a little more, I think, eh? How, in what way? Why, puff puff, you might puff puff employ counsel in the matter, eh? Puff puff puff. Do you remember the story they tell of Abernethy? No, hang Abernethy. To be sure, hang him and welcome. But once upon a time a certain rich miser conceived the design of sponging upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up for this purpose an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician as that of an imaginary individual. We will suppose, said the miser, that his symptoms are such and such. Now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take? Take, said Abernethy. Why, take advice to be sure. But, said the prefect, a little discomposed, I am perfectly willing to take advice and to pay for it. I would really give fifty thousand francs to anyone who could aid me in this matter. In that case, replied Dupin, opening a drawer and producing a checkbook, you may as well fill me up a check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter. I was astounded. The prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets. Then, apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen and, after several pauses and vacant stairs, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocketbook. Then, unlocking an espritoir, took thence a letter and gave it to the prefect. This functionary grasped it in perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling to the door, brushed at length unceremoniously from the room and from the house without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check. When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations. The Parisian police, he said, are exceedingly able in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when G. detailed to us his motive searching the premises at the Hotel D., I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investigation so far as his labours extended. So far as his labours extended, said I, Yes, said Dupin, the measures adopted were not only the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would beyond a question have found it. I merely laughed, but he seemed quite serious in all that he said. The measures, then, he continued, were good in their kind and well executed, their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the prefect, a sort of procrustian bed to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow for the matter in hand. And many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. He's the only one about eight years of age who's success at guessing in the game of even an odd attracted universal admiration. This game is simple and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one. If wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. There's a simple of guessing and this lay in mere observation and ad measurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an errant simple is his opponent and, holding up his closed hand, asks, are they even or odd? Our schoolboy replies odd and loses, but upon the second trial he wins for he then says to himself the simple had them even upon the first trial amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second. I will therefore guess odd. He guesses odd and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus. This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and in the second he will propose to himself upon the first impulse a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton. But then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even. He guesses even and wins. Now, this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed lucky, what in its last analysis is it? It is merely, I said, an identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent. It is, said Dupin, and upon inquiring of the boy by what means he affected the thorough identification in which his success consisted, I received answer as follows. When I wished to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is anyone, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashioned the expression of my face as accurately as possible in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart as if to match or correspond with the expression. This response of the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to Rochefakalt, to Labogiv, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella. And the identification, I said, of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent depends, if I understand you are right, upon the accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is ad-measured. For its practical value it depends upon this, replied Dupin, and the prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of this identification, and secondly, by ill-ed measurement, or rather through non-ed measurement, of the intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity, and in searching for anything hidden, adverge only to the modes in which they would have hidden it. They are right in this much, that their own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass. But when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no variation of principle in their investigations. At best, when urged by some unusual emergency, by some extraordinary reward, they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice without touching their principles. What, for example, in this case of D, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring and probing and sounding and scrutinizing with the microscope and dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches? What is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the prefect in the long routine of his duty has been accustomed? Do you not see, he has taken it for granted, that all men proceed to conceal a letter, not exactly in a gimlet hole bored in a chair leg, but at least in some out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet hole bored in a chair leg? And do you not see also that such recheche nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects? For, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealed, a disposal of it in this recheche manner, is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed. And thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers, and where the cases of importance, or what amounts to the same thing in the political eyes when the reward is of magnitude, the qualities in question have never been known to fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the perloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the prefect's examination, in other words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the prefect, its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified, and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are poets, this the prefect feels, and he is merely guilty of a non-distribute omediae, in thence inferring that all poets are fools. But is this really the poet? I asked. There are two brothers I know, and both have attained reputation in letters. The minister, I believe, has written learnedly on the differential calculus. He is a mathematician and no poet. You are mistaken. I know him well. He is both. As poet and mathematician, he would reason well. As mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the prefect. You surprise me, I said, by these opinions which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at not the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence. Ilia Aparié replied Dupin, quoting from Shantfor, Que toute idée publique toute conventione recue et une sortisse, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre. The mathematicians, I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and which is nonetheless an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy of better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term analysis into application to algebra. The French are the originators of this particular deception, but if a term is of any importance, if words derive any value from applicability, then analysis conveys algebra about as much as in Latin, ambitus implies ambition, religio, religion, or omines honesti, a set of honorable men. You have a quarrel on hand, I see, said I, with some of the algebraists of Paris, but proceed. I dispute the availability and thus the value of that reason which is cultivated in any of special form other than the abstractly logical. I dispute in particular the reason induced by mathematical study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity. Mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation of form and quantity is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration of motive it fails. For two motives each of a given value have not necessarily a value when united equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician argues from his finite truths through habit as if they were of an absolutely general applicability, as the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant in his very learned mythology mentions an analogous source of error when he says that although the pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually and make inferences from them as existing realities. With the algebraists, however, who are pagans themselves, the pagan fables are believed and the inferences are made not so much through lapse of memory as through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short I have never encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x squared plus px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where x squared plus px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down. I mean to say, continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last observations, that if the minister had been no more than a mathematician, the prefect would have been under no necessity of giving me this check. I know him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a quartier, too, and as a bold intrigant. Such a man I considered could not fail to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate, and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate, the waylings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which g, in fact, did finally arrive, the conviction that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt also that the whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing you just now, considering the invariable principle of policial action in searches for articles concealed, I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the prefect. I saw in fine that he would be driven as a matter of course to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so very self-evident. Yes, said I, I remember his merriment well. I really thought he would have fallen into convulsions. The material world, continued Dupin, abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial, and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma that metaphor or simile may be made to strengthen an argument as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the V inertie, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty than it is in the latter that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few steps of their progress. Again, have you ever noticed which of the street signs over the shop doors are the most attractive of attention? I have never given the matter a thought, I said. There is a game of puzzles, he resumed, which is played upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a given word, the name of town, river, state, or empire, any word in short upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered names. But the adept selects such words as stretch in large characters from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the over largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious. And here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point it appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the prefect. He never once thought it probable or possible that the minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world by way of best preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it. But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating ingenuity of D, upon the fact that the document must always have been at hand if he intended to use it to good purpose, and upon the decisive evidence obtained by the prefect that it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search, the more satisfied I became that to conceal this letter the minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all. Full of these ideas I prepared myself with a pair of green spectacles and called one fine morning quite by accident at the ministerial hotel. I found D at home yawning, lounging, and dawdling as usual and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is perhaps the most really energetic human being now alive, but that is only when nobody sees him. To be even with him I complained of my weak eyes and lamented the necessity of the spectacles under cover of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment while seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host. I paid a special attention to a large writing table near which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other papers with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion. At length my eyes and going the circuit of the room fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of paste-board that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantelpiece. In this rack which had three or four compartments were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two across the middle as if a design in the first instance to tear it entirely up as worthless had been altered or stayed in the second. It had a large black seal bearing the D. cipher very conspicuously and was addressed in a diminutive female hand to D. the minister himself. It was thrust carelessly and even as it seemed contemptuously into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack. No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure it was to all appearance radically different from the one of which the prefect had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and black with the D. cipher. There it was small and red with the ducal arms of the S. family. Here the address to the minister diminutive and feminine. There the superscription to a certain royal personage was markedly bold and decided. The size alone formed a point of correspondence. But then the radicalness of these differences which was excessive, the dirt, the soiled and torn condition of the paper so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document. These things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visitor and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived. These things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion in one who came with the intention to suspect. I protracted my visit as long as possible, and while I maintained a most animated discussion with the minister upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack, and also fell at length upon a discovery which said at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, being once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reverse direction in the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned as a glove inside out, redirected and resealed. I bade the minister good morning and took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff box upon the table. The next morning I called for the snuff box when we resumed quite eagerly the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screens and the shouting of a terrified mob. D. rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime I stepped to the card rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a facsimile, so far as regards externals, which I had carefully prepared at my lodgings, imitating the D. cipher very readily by means of a seal formed of bread. The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D. came from the window whither I had followed him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay. But what purpose had you, I asked, in replacing the letter by a facsimile? Would it not have been better at the first visit to have seized it openly and departed? D., replied Dupin, is a desperate man and a man of nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendance devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You know my political prepossessions. In this matter I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the minister has had her in his power. She has now him in hers. Since being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed in his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself at once to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilist dissensus of Ernie. But in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I have no sympathy, at least no pity, for him who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the prefect terms a certain personage, he is reduced to opening the letter which I left for him in the card rack. How? Did you put anything particular in it? Why, it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank. That would have been insulting. D. at Vienna once did be an evil turn, which I told him quite good humoredly that I should remember. So, as I know he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought at a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted with my manuscript, and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words, unda san si fu nest, si ne di ne di a tre, e di ne di tiest. They are to be found in Crebion's atre. End of The Perloined Letter CHAPTER NUMBER 2 OF THE COLLECTED WORKS OF EDGAR ALLEN POE THE RAVEN EDITION VOLUME 2 CHAPTER II THE THOUSAND AND SECOND TAYL OF SHAHERIZAD TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION, OLD SAYING. Having had occasion lately, in the course of some oriental investigations, to consult the tell-me-now-is-it-wurnot, a work which, like the Zohar of Simeon jacades, is scarcely known at all, even in Europe, and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American, if we accept, perhaps, the author of the Curiosities of American Literature, having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the first, mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error, respecting the fate of the Vizier's daughter, Shaherazad, as that fate is depicted in the Arabian Nights, and that the denouement there, given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much farther. For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the inquisitive reader to the is-it-wurnot itself, but in the meantime, I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered. It will be remembered that, in the usual version of the tales, a certain monarch, having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard in the prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the next morning, to deliver her up to the executioner. Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted one afternoon, no doubt at his prayers, by a visit from his grand Vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea. Her name was Shaherazad, and her idea was that she would either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish after the approved fashion of all heroines in the attempt. Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leapier, which makes the sacrifice more meritorious, she deputies her father, the grand Vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king eagerly accepts. He had intended to take it at all events, and had put off the matter from day to day, only through fear of the Vizier, but, in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand that, grand Vizier or no grand Vizier, he has not the slightest design of giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore, the fair Shaherazad insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually marry him, despite her father's excellent advice not to do anything of the kind, when she would, and did marry him, I say will I nil I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow. It seems, however, that this politic damsel, who had been reading Machiavelli beyond doubt, had a very ingenious little plot in her mind. On the night of the wedding she contrived, upon I forget what specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently near that of the royal pair, to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed, and, a little before cock crowing, she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband, who bore her none the worst will because he intended to wring her neck on the morrow, she managed to awaken him, I say, although on account of the capital conscience, and an easy digestion he slept well, by the profound interest of a story, about a rat and a black cat, I think, which she was narrating, all in an undertone, of course, to her sister. When the day broke it so happened that this history was not altogether finished, and that Shaherazad, in the nature of things, could not finish it just then, since it was high time for her to get up and be bow-strung, a thing very little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel. The king's curiosity, however prevailing, I am sorry to say, even over his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to postpone the fulfillment of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end with the black cat, a black cat I think it was, and the rat. The night having arrived, however, the lady Shaherazad not only put the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat, the rat was blue, but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference, if I am not altogether mistaken, to a pink horse, with green wings, that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than the other, and, as the day broke before its conclusion, notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors to get through with it in time for the bow stringing, there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony as before for 24 hours. The next night there happened a similar accident with a similar result, and then the next, and then again the next, so that, in the end, the good monarch, having been unavoidably deprived vol opportunity to keep his vowtering a period of no less than one thousand and one nights, either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time, or gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or, what is more probable, breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father confessor. At all events, Scheherazad, who, being linearly descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked up from under the trees in the Garden of Eden, Scheherazad, I say, finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed. Now, this conclusion, which is that of the story as we have it upon record, is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant, but alas. Like a great many pleasant things it is more pleasant than true, and I am indebted altogether to the is it's or not, for the means of correcting the error. Le mieux, says a French proverb, est l'ennemi du bien, and, in mentioning that Scheherazad had inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she put them out at compound interest until they amounted at seventy-seven. My dear sister, said she, on the thousand and second night, I quote the language of the is it's or not in this point verbatim. My dear sister, said she, now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and the king, who I am sorry to say snores, a thing no gentleman would do, the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous other and more interesting adventures than those which I related, but the truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their narration, and so was seduced into cutting them short, a grievous piece of misconduct for which I only trust that Allah will forgive me, but even yet it is not too late to remedy my great neglect, and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in order to wake him, so far that he may stop making that horrible noise, I will forthwith entertain you, and him, if he pleases, with the sequel of this very remarkable story. Hereupon the sister of Sheherazad, as I have it from the is-its were not, expressed no very particular intensity of gratification, but the king, having been sufficiently pinched at length, ceased snoring, and finally said, hum, and then who, when the queen, understanding these words, which are no doubt Arabic, to signify that he was all attention, and would do his best not to snore any more, the queen, I say, having arranged these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into the history of Sinbad the sailor. At length in my old age, these are the words of Sinbad himself, as retailed by Sheherazad. At length, in my old age, and after enjoying many years of tranquility at home, I became once more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries, and one day, without equating any of my family with my design, I packed up some bundles of such merchandise as was most precious and least bulky, and engaged a porter to carry them, went with him down to the seashore, to await the arrival of any chance vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region which I had not as yet explored. Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I fancy that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound, and the porter, after listening a while, declared that he also could distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could have no doubt that the object which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in size, until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended far off into the distance. As the thing drew near, we saw it very distinctly, its length was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, oh most sublime and magnificent of the caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout all that portion of it which floated above the water, with the exception of a narrow, blood-red streak that completely begrittled it. The belly, which floated beneath the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely covered with metallic scales of a color like that of the moon in misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it there extended upwards of six spines about half the length of the whole body. The horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive, but as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least four score of eyes that protruded from their sockets like those of the green dragonfly, and were arranged all around the body in two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold. Although this beast approached us, as I have said before, with the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy, for it had neither fins like a fish, nor web feet like a duck, nor wings like the seashell, which is blown along in the manner of a vessel, nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely alike. Only, not far from the latter, there were two holes that served for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick breath with prodigious violence, and with the shrieking disagreeable noise. Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but it was even surpassed by our astonishment when upon getting a nearer look, we perceived upon the creature's back a vast number of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them, except that they wore no garments, as men do, being supplied, by nature, no doubt, with an ugly, uncomfortable covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting so tight to the skin as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward, and put them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I thought might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon discovered that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I therefore concluded they were contrivances designed by their great weight to keep the heads of the animals steady and safe upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were fastened black collars, badges of servitude, no doubt, such as we keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so that it was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their heads in any direction without moving the body at the same time, and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their noses, a view pugish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively in an awful degree. When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near the head of the large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which, putting it to his mouth, he presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable accents that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had they not come altogether through the nose. Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as I could in no manner understood what was said, and in this difficulty I turned to the porter, who was near-swooning through a fright, and demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was, what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed upon his back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could, for trepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast, that it was a cruel demon, with bowels of sulfur and blood of fire, created by evil genie as the means of inflicting misery upon mankind, that the things upon its back were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a little larger and more savage, and that these vermin had their uses, however evil for, through the torture they caused the beast by their nibbling and stinging, was goaded into that degree of wrath, which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and so fulfill the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genie. This account determined me to take to my hills, and, without once even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took excellent care, although this is a point I cannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again. For myself I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men vermin, who had come to the shore and boats, that I was very soon overtaken, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam out again into the middle of the sea. I am now bitterly repented of my folly in quitting a comfortable house to peril my life in such adventures as this, but regret being useless, I made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the goodwill of the man animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavor that, in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of his favor, and in the end even went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate its language, so that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world. Washish, washish, squeak, sinbad, hey, little, little grunt, unt grumble, his, this, this, said he to me one day after dinner. But I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not conversant with the dialect of the cocknays, so the man animals were called. I presume because their language formed the connecting link between that of the horse and that of the rooster. With your permission I will translate washish, squashish, and so forth, that is to say, I'm happy to find, my dear sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow. We are now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the globe, and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage upon back of the beast. When the Lady Scheherazade had preceded thus far, relates the is-its-were-not, the king turned over from his left side to his right and said, It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you admitted hitherto these latter adventures of sinbad. Do you know I think them exceedingly entertaining and strange? The king, having expressed himself, we are told, the fair Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words. Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative to the caliph. I thanked the man animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very much at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the ocean, although the surface of the ladder is, in that part of the world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we went, so to say, either uphill or downhill, all the time. That, I think, was very singular, interrupted the king. Nevertheless, it is quite true, replied Scheherazade. I have my doubts, rejoined the king, but pray be so good as to go on with the story. I will, said the queen. The beast continued sinbad to the caliph, swam, as I have related, uphill and downhill, until, at length, we arrived at an island many hundreds of miles in circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle of the sea by a colony of little things like caterpillars. The Coralites. Hum, said the king. Leaving the island, said sinbad, for Scheherazade, it must be understood, took no notice of her husband's ill-mannered ejaculation. Leaving this island, we came to another where the forests were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the finest tempered axes with which we endeavored to cut them down. One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is a petrified forest near the head of Pasigna River. It consists of several hundred trees in an erect position, all turned to stone. Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a startling fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to modify the existing theory of petrification, Kennedy. This discovery, at first discredited, has since been corroborated by the discovery of a completely petrified forest near the headwaters of the Cheyenne, or Cheyenne River, which has its source in the black hills of the rocky chain. There is, scarcely perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the globe more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque point of view, than that presented by the petrified forest near Cairo. The traveler, having passed the tombs of the caliphs, just beyond the gates of the city, proceeds to the southward, nearly at right angles to the road across the desert to Suez, and, after having traveled some ten miles up a low barren valley, covered with sand, gravel, and seashells, fresh as if the tide had retired but yesterday, crosses a low range of sand hills, which has, for some distance, run parallel to his path. The scene, now presented to him, is beyond conception singular and desolate, a mass of fragments of trees, all converted into stone, and when struck by his horse's hoof, ringing like cast iron, is seen to extend itself from miles and miles around him, in the form of a decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown hue, but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can reach, that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way through amongst them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or Ireland, it might pass without remark for some enormous drained bog, on which the exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots and rudiments of the branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect, and in some, the wormholes eaten under the bark are readily recognizable. The most delicate of the sap vessels, and all the finer portions of the centre of the wood, are perfectly entire, and bear to be examined with the strongest of magnifiers. The hole are so thoroughly solicified, as to scratch glass, and are capable of receiving the highest polish, Asiatic Magazine. Hum, said the king, again, but Shahara's ad, paying him no attention, continued in the language of Sinbad. Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where there was a cave that ran to the distance of 30 or 40 miles within the bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far more spacious and more magnificent palaces, than are to be found in all Damascus and Baghdad. From the roofs of these palaces, there hung myriads of gems, like diamonds, but larger than men, and in among the streets of towers, and pyramids, and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony, and swarming with fish that had no eyes. The mammoth cave of Kentucky. Hum, said the king. We then swam into a region of the sea, where we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides their streamed torrents of melted metal, some of which were 12 miles wide and 60 miles long. In Iceland, 1783, while from an abyss on the summit issued so vast a quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight, so that when we were even at the distance of 150 miles from the mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object, however close we held it to our eyes. During the eruption of Hekla in 1766, clouds of this kind produced such a degree of darkness that at Glomba, which is more than 50 leagues from the mountain, people could only find their way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius in 1794, at Kaserta, four leagues' distance, people could only walk by the light of torches. On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic ashes and sand coming from a volcano in the island of St. Vincent covered the whole of Barbados, spreading over it so intense a darkness that, at midday, in the open air, one could not perceive the trees or other objects near him, or even a white handkerchief placed at the distance of six inches from the eye. Murray, page 212, Philadelphia edition. Hum, said the king. After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we met with a land in which the nature of things seemed reverse. For here we saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees. In the year 1790, in the Caracas, during an earthquake, a portion of the granite soil sank and left a lake 800 yards in diameter, and from 80 to 100 feet deep, it was a part of the forest of Arapa, which sank, and the trees remained green for several months under the water. Murray, page 221. Who, said the king. Some hundred miles further on brought us to a climate where the atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our own does feather. The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder which will float readily in the atmospheric air. Fiddledy Dee, said the king. Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at the most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it, there meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of amber. It was from three to six miles in width, and its banks, which arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height, were crowned with ever-blossoming trees in perpetual, sweet-scented flowers that made the whole territory one gorgeous garden. But the name of this luxuriant land was the kingdom of horror, and to enter it was inevitable death. The Region of the Niger C. Simona's Colonial Magazine. Humpf, said the king. We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came to another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous animals with horns resembling sides upon their heads. These hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil of a funnel shape, and line the sides of them with rock, so disposed one upon the other that they fall instantly when trodden upon by other animals, thus precipitating them into the monster's dens, where their blood is immediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an immense distance from the caverns of death. The Mermelian Lion Ant. The term monster is equally applicable to small abnormal things into great, while such epithets as vast are merely comparative. The cavern of the Mermelian is vast in comparison with the whole of the common red ant. A grain of Silex is also a rock. Pooh, said the king. Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with vegetables that grew not upon any soil, but in the air. The Epidendrum, Floss Aris, of the family of the Orchidae, grows with merely the surface of its roots attached to a tree or other object from which it derives no nutriment, subsisting altogether upon air. There were others that sprang from the substance of other vegetables. Note number two. The parasites, such as the wonderful Rhaflesia, are gnarly. Others that derive their substance from the bodies of living animals. Note number three. Shoe advocates a class of plants that grow upon living animals, the plantae epizoe. Of this class are the Fussi and algae. Mr. J.B. Williams of Salem, Massachusetts presented the National Institute with an insect from New Zealand with the following description. The hot, a decided caterpillar or worm, is found growing at the foot of the Rata tree with a plant growing out of its head. This most peculiar and most extraordinary insect travels up both the Rata and Periri trees and entering into the top eats its way, perforating the trunk of the tree until it reaches the root. It then comes out of the root and dies or remains dormant and the plant propagates out of its head. The body remains perfect and entire of a harder substance than when alive. From this insect, the natives make a coloring for tattooing. And then again, there were others that glowed all over with intense fire. Note number four. In Mines and Natural Caves, we find a species of cryptogamous fungus that emits an intense phosphorescence. Others that move from place to place at pleasure. Note number five. The Orcus, Scabius and Vallesonaria. And what was still more wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures and confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of appointed tasks. Note number six. The Corolla of this flower, Aristolokia clematitis, which is tubular but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally beset with stiff hairs pointing downward. The globular part contains the pistol, which consists merely of a German in stigma, together with the surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter than the German, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after impregnation. And hence, without some additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must necessarily fan down to the bottom of the flower. Now, the aid that nature has furnished in this case is that of the tipputa penicornis, a small insect, which, entering the tube of the corolla in quest of honey, descends to the bottom and rummages about till it becomes quite covered with pollen. But not being able to force its way out again owing to the downward position of the hairs, which converge to a point like the wires of the mousetrap, and being somewhat impatient of its confinement, it brushes backwards and forwards, trying every corner till, after repeatedly traversing the stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its impregnation, in consequence of which the flower soon begins to droop. And the hairs to shrink to the sides of the tube, affecting an easy passage for the escape of the insect, reverend P. Keith, system of physiological botany. Pasha, said the king, quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that they give daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise men of the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for the solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon the spot, the one by the bees and the other by the birds. But the king, keeping their solution a secret, it was only after the most profound researches in labor and the writing of an infinity of big books during a long series of years that the men mathematicians at length arrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon the spot by the bees and by the birds. The bees, ever since bees were, have been constructing their cells with just such size, in just such number, and at just such inclinations, as it has been demonstrated in a problem involving the profoundest mathematical principles, are the very sides, in the very number, and at the very angles which will afford the creatures, the most room which is compatible with the greatest stability of structure. During the latter part of the century, the question arose among mathematicians to determine the best form that can be given to the sails of the windmill, according to their varying distances from the revolving veins and likewise from the centers of their revolution. This is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words, to find the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances and at an infinity of points on the arm. There were a thousand futile attempts to answer the query on the part of the most illustrious mathematicians, and when, at length, an undeniable solution was discovered, meant found that the wing of a bird had given it with absolute precision ever since the first bird had traversed the air. Oh, my, said the king. We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth and 240 miles long, so that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it required no less than four hours for the whole flock to pass over us, in which there were several millions of millions of fowl. He observed a flock of pigeons passing between Frankfurt and the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth. It took up four hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a length of 240 miles, and supposing three pigeons to each square yard gives 2 billion, 230 million, 270, 200,000 pigeons. Travels in Canada and the United States by Lieutenant F. Hall. Oh, my, said the king. No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us great annoyance. And we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocks, which I met in my former voyages. For it was bigger than the biggest of the domes on your Saraglio. Oh, most municipant of caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance, smooth, shining, and striped with various colors. In its talons, the monster was bearing away to its airy in the heavens, a house from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of which we distinctively saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited them. We shouted with all our might in the hope of frightening the bird in the letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort or puff, as if of raid, and then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand. Stuff, said the king. It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky blue cow that had no fewer than four hundred horns. The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color having horns four hundred in number. Sales Quran. That now I believe, said the king, because I have read something of the kind before in a bull. We passed immediately beneath this continent, swimming in between the legs of the cow, and, after some hours, found ourselves in a wonderful country indeed, which I was informed by the man animal, was his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated the man animal very much in my esteem, and, in fact, I now began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him, for I found that the man animals in general were a nation of the most powerful magicians who lived with worms in their brain. The Entezoa, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been observed in the muscles and in the cerebral substance of men. See Wyatt's physiology page 143. Which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their most painful writhings and riglings to the most miraculous efforts of imagination. Nonsense, said the king. Among the magicians were domesticated several animals of very singular kinds. For example, there was a huge horse whose bones were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had black stones for his usual food, and yet, in spite of so hard a diet, he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than the grandest temples in the city at a rate surpassing that of the flight of most birds. On the Great Western Railway between London and Exeter, a speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90 tons was whirled from Paddington to Ditkut, 53 miles in 51 minutes. Twattle, said the king. I saw also, among these people, a hen without feathers, but bigger than a camel, instead of flesh and bones she had iron and brick. Her blood, like that of the horse, to whom, in fact, she was nearly related, was boiling water. Unlike him, she ate nothing but wood or black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently a hundred chickens in the day, and, after birth, they took up their resident for several weeks within the stomach of their mother. The echelobian. Fa, la, said the king. One of this nation of mighty conjurers created a man out of brass and wood and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would have beaten at chess all the races of mankind with the exception of the great Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Maitzal's automaton chess player. Another of these magi constructed, of like material, a creature that put to shame even the genius of him who made it, for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required the United Labor of 50,000 fleshy men for a year. Note number two. Babbage's calculating machine. But a still more wonderful conjurer fashioned for himself a mighty thing that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead intermixed with a black matter-like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble in writing out 20,000 copies of the Quran in an hour. And this was so exquisite a precision that in all the copies there should not be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair. This thing was of prodigious strength so that it erected or overthrew the mightiest empires at a breadth, but its powers were exercised equally for evil and for good. Ridiculous, said the king. Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in his veins the blood of the salamanders, for he made no scruple of sitting down to smoke his shibuk in a red-hot oven until his dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. Shaber, and since him a hundred others. Another had the faculty of converting the common metals into gold without even looking at them during the process. Note number two, the electrotype. Another had such delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to be invisible. Note number three, Walliston made of platinum for the field of views in a telescope a wire one 18 thousandths part of an inch in thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope. Another had such quickness of perception that he counted all the separate motions of an elastic body while it was bringing backward and forward at the rate of 900 millions of times in a second. Note number four, Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence of the violet ray of the spectrum vibrated 900 millions of times in a second. Absurd, said the king. Another of these magicians by means of a fluid that nobody ever yet saw could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will. Voltaic pile. Another had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could have made himself heard from one end of the world to another. Note number two, the electro telegraph printing apparatus. Another had so long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and indict a letter at Baghdad or indeed at any distance whatsoever. Note number three, the electro telegraph transmits intelligence instantaneously, at least as so far as regards any distance upon the earth. Another commanded the lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at his call and served him for a plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. Note number four, common experiments in natural philosophy. If two red rays from two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to fall on a white surface and differ in their length by 0.000258 of an inch, their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference in length be any whole number multiple of that fraction, a multiple of two and a quarter, three and a quarter, etc. gives an intensity equal to one ray only, but a multiple by two and a half, three and a half, etc. gives the result of total darkness. In violet rays similar effects arise when the difference in length is 0.000157 of an inch, and with all other rays the results are the same. The difference varying with the uniform increase from the violet to the red. Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous results. Another made ice in a red hot furnace. Note number five, place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp and keep it a red heat. Pour in some sulfuric acid which, though the most volatile of bodies at a common temperature will be found to become completely fixed in a hot crucible and not a drop evaporates, being surrounded by an atmosphere of its own, it does not in fact touch the sides. A few drops of water are now introduced when the acid, immediately coming in contact with the heated sides of the crucible, flies off in sulfurous acid vapor and so rapid is its progress that the caloric of the water passes off with it, which falls a lump of ice to the bottom. By taking advantage of the moment before it is allowed to remelt, it may be turned out a lump of ice from a red hot vessel. Another directed the light to paint his portrait and the sun did. Note number six, the daguerreotype. Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets and having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were made. But the whole nation is indeed of so surprising a necromantic ability that not even their infants nor their commonest cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all, or that for 20 millions of years before the birth of the nation itself had been blotted out from the face of creation. Note number seven, although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the distance of 61 signe, the only star whose distance is ascertained, is so inconceivably great that its rays would require more than 10 years to reach the earth. For stars beyond this, 20 or even 1,000 years would be a moderate estimate. Thus, if they had been annihilated 20 or 1,000 years ago, we might still see them today by the light which started from their surface 20 or 1,000 years in the past, that many which we see daily are really extinct is not impossible, nor even improbable. Preposterous, said the king. The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise magi, continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed by these frequent and most un-gentlemanly interruptions on the part of her husband. The wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are everything that is accomplished and refined, and would be everything that is interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others, but this of which I speak has come in the shape of a crotchet. A what? said the king. A crotchet, said Scheherazade. One of the evil genie, who are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personal beauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the small of the neck. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman from a dromedary. Stop, said the king. I can't take that, and I won't. You have already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I perceive is beginning to break. How long have we been married? My conscience is getting to be troublesome again, and then that dromedary touch. Do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you might as well get up and be throttled. These words I learned from the izzits were not both grieved Anistones Scheherazade, but as she knew the king to be a man of scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with good grace. She derived, however, great consolation during the tightening of the bowstring, from the reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most righteous reward in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.