state.  And this was his burial place, as already ascertained by the inscription.  And now it began to be suspected that the caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancient haunts in that old time that he roamed the earth—­for upon the breast of each of these tall fossils was an inscription in the character heretofore noticed.  One read, ‘Captain Kidd the pirate’; another, ‘Queen Victoria’; another, ‘Abe Lincoln’; another, ‘George Washington,’ etc.

“With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records to discover if perchance the description of Man there set down would tally with the fossils before us.  Professor Woodlouse read it aloud in its quaint and musty phraseology, to wit: 

“’In ye time of our fathers Man still walked ye earth, as by tradition we know.  It was a creature of exceeding great size, being compassed about with a loose skin, sometimes of one color, sometimes of many, the which it was able to cast at will; which being done, the hind legs were discovered to be armed with short claws like to a mole’s but broader, and ye forelegs with fingers of a curious slimness and a length much more prodigious than a frog’s, armed also with broad talons for scratching in ye earth for its food.  It had a sort of feathers upon its head such as hath a rat, but longer, and a beak suitable for seeking its food by ye smell thereof.  When it was stirred with happiness, it leaked water from its eyes; and when it suffered or was sad, it manifested it with a horrible hellish cackling clamor that was exceeding dreadful to hear and made one long that it might rend itself and perish, and so end its troubles.  Two Mans being together, they uttered noises at each other like this:  “Haw-haw-haw—­dam good, dam good,” together with other sounds of more or less likeness to these, wherefore ye poets conceived that they talked, but poets be always ready to catch at any frantic folly, God he knows.  Sometimes this creature goeth about with a long stick ye which it putteth to its face and bloweth fire and smoke through ye same with a sudden and most damnable bruit and noise that doth fright its prey to death, and so seizeth it in its talons and walketh away to its habitat, consumed with a most fierce and devilish joy.’

“Now was the description set forth by our ancestors wonderfully indorsed and confirmed by the fossils before us, as shall be seen.  The specimen marked ‘Captain Kidd’ was examined in detail.  Upon its head and part of its face was a sort of fur like that upon the tail of a horse.  With great labor its loose skin was removed, whereupon its body was discovered to be of a polished white texture, thoroughly petrified.  The straw it had eaten, so many ages gone by, was still in its body, undigested—­and even in its legs.