After the discovery of the embalming principle, as I have already
      described it to you, it occurred to our philosophers that a laudable
      curiosity might be gratified, and, at the same time, the interests of
      science much advanced, by living this natural term in installments. In the
      case of history, indeed, experience demonstrated that something of this
      kind was indispensable. An historian, for example, having attained the age
      of five hundred, would write a book with great labor and then get himself
      carefully embalmed; leaving instructions to his executors pro tem., that
      they should cause him to be revivified after the lapse of a certain period—say
      five or six hundred years. Resuming existence at the expiration of this
      time, he would invariably find his great work converted into a species of
      hap-hazard note-book—that is to say, into a kind of literary arena
      for the conflicting guesses, riddles, and personal squabbles of whole
      herds of exasperated commentators. These guesses, etc., which passed under
      the name of annotations, or emendations, were found so completely to have
      enveloped, distorted, and overwhelmed the text, that the author had to go
      about with a lantern to discover his own book. When discovered, it was
      never worth the trouble of the search. After re-writing it throughout, it
      was regarded as the bounden duty of the historian to set himself to work
      immediately in correcting, from his own private knowledge and experience,
      the traditions of the day concerning the epoch at which he had originally
      lived. Now this process of re-scription and personal rectification,
      pursued by various individual sages from time to time, had the effect of
      preventing our history from degenerating into absolute fable.”


      “I beg your pardon,” said Doctor Ponnonner at this point, laying his hand
      gently upon the arm of the Egyptian—“I beg your pardon, sir, but may
      I presume to interrupt you for one moment?”


      “By all means, sir,” replied the Count, drawing up. “I merely wished to ask you a question,” said the Doctor. “You mentioned
      the historian’s personal correction of traditions respecting his own
      epoch. Pray, sir, upon an average what proportion of these Kabbala were
      usually found to be right?”


      “The Kabbala, as you properly term them, sir, were generally discovered to
      be precisely on a par with the facts recorded in the un-re-written
      histories themselves;—that is to say, not one individual iota of
      either was ever known, under any circumstances, to be not totally and
      radically wrong.”


      “But since it is quite clear,” resumed the Doctor, “that at least five
      thousand years have elapsed since your entombment, I take it for granted
      that your histories at that period, if not your traditions were
      sufficiently explicit on that one topic of universal interest, the
      Creation, which took place, as I presume you are aware, only about ten
      centuries before.”


      “Sir!” said the Count Allamistakeo. The Doctor repeated his remarks, but it was only after much additional
      explanation that the foreigner could be made to comprehend them. The
      latter at length said, hesitatingly:

      “The ideas you have suggested are to me, I confess, utterly novel. During
      my time I never knew any one to entertain so singular a fancy as that the
      universe (or this world if you will have it so) ever had a beginning at
      all. I remember once, and once only, hearing something remotely hinted, by
      a man of many speculations, concerning the origin _of the human race;_
      and by this individual, the very word _Adam_ (or Red Earth), which
      you make use of, was employed. He employed it, however, in a generical
      sense, with reference to the spontaneous germination from rank soil (just
      as a thousand of the lower genera of creatures are germinated)—the
      spontaneous germination, I say, of five vast hordes of men, simultaneously
      upspringing in five distinct and nearly equal divisions of the globe.”


      Here, in general, the company shrugged their shoulders, and one or two of
      us touched our foreheads with a very significant air. Mr. Silk Buckingham,
      first glancing slightly at the occiput and then at the sinciput of
      Allamistakeo, spoke as follows:

      “The long duration of human life in your time, together with the
      occasional practice of passing it, as you have explained, in installments,
      must have had, indeed, a strong tendency to the general development and
      conglomeration of knowledge. I presume, therefore, that we are to
      attribute the marked inferiority of the old Egyptians in all particulars
      of science, when compared with the moderns, and more especially with the
      Yankees, altogether to the superior solidity of the Egyptian skull.”


      “I confess again,” replied the Count, with much suavity, “that I am
      somewhat at a loss to comprehend you; pray, to what particulars of science
      do you allude?”


      Here our whole party, joining voices, detailed, at great length, the
      assumptions of phrenology and the marvels of animal magnetism. Having heard us to an end, the Count proceeded to relate a few anecdotes,
      which rendered it evident that prototypes of Gall and Spurzheim had
      flourished and faded in Egypt so long ago as to have been nearly
      forgotten, and that the manoeuvres of Mesmer were really very contemptible
      tricks when put in collation with the positive miracles of the Theban
      savans, who created lice and a great many other similar things. I here asked the Count if his people were able to calculate eclipses. He
      smiled rather contemptuously, and said they were. This put me a little out, but I began to make other inquiries in regard to
      his astronomical knowledge, when a member of the company, who had never as
      yet opened his mouth, whispered in my ear, that for information on this
      head, I had better consult Ptolemy (whoever Ptolemy is), as well as one
      Plutarch de facie lunae. I then questioned the Mummy about burning-glasses and lenses, and, in
      general, about the manufacture of glass; but I had not made an end of my
      queries before the silent member again touched me quietly on the elbow,
      and begged me for God’s sake to take a peep at Diodorus Siculus. As for
      the Count, he merely asked me, in the way of reply, if we moderns
      possessed any such microscopes as would enable us to cut cameos in the
      style of the Egyptians. While I was thinking how I should answer this
      question, little Doctor Ponnonner committed himself in a very
      extraordinary way.