The subject of the present notice was picked up at sea, a child, and,
under the provisions of maritime law concerning flotsam, jetsam, and
lagan, was appropriated by the crew. He then followed their fortunes
for several years, with various adventures, among which is the one
wherein he is said to have accompanied Arthur Gordon Pym (disguised in
the published account of that voyage under the name and appearance of
one Peters) upon his fearful South-Sea sail towards that vapory cataract
at the world's end which was seen "rolling silently into the sea from
some immense and far-distant rampart of the heaven," from the horrors of
which he escaped in the same miraculous manner that Mr. Pym did. He must
still have been young at the time, as this occurred in 1838. Unable to
find any credence to these extraordinary statements upon his return, he
found an asylum from the unbelieving world, where, in order not to
become a permanent resident, and being capable of impartial judgment
thereon, he employed himself in a profound study of finance. Emerging
from this seclusion, lest he should defraud his natural element
entirely, he plunged into the hot water of the revolutions then ravaging
Europe. Receiving wounds, he was laid up in hospital; and being of an
active turn of mind and debarred from other pursuits, he fell (like Dr.
Marie Zakrzewski) to studying the cards renewed every day above the
patients' beds with the disease written thereon, its symptoms, and its
treatment; in this manner he acquired quite a knowledge of medicine. He
was, however, mercifully prevented from practising by the fact, that,
upon repeating his story to an acquaintance, he met, as before, with
such total disbelief, that, most fortunately for many readers, he
determined at once to devote the remainder of his days to fiction.

How much faith such a narrative deserves we leave others to decide. It,
however, has the virtue, as Una declares again, of plausibly explaining