“‘Communing among themselves, with a deferential review of our persons they seemingly acknowledged the superiority of our pretensions, while questioning the cause of our forlorn condition when found. At length in their doubt they appealed to an aged man whose appearance augured wisdom, who answered sagely by addressing, for our comprehension and approval, his symbolic exposition of the cause. Selecting two tall spears of grass, overtopping the heads of their kind, he pointed to the eldest parents of our group, then reversing the stalks with the roots upward, he forced the symbols apart by introducing a younger female blade between, adherent to the tendrils of the paternal branch, causing the mother and her seed to fall to the earth. This disruptive demonstration so clearly defined his knowledge of the human passions, in accordance with the experienced injustice of our own race, that a blush of shame suffused, with its evidence of conviction, the faces of some of our elders whose withers of frailty had been touched. Taking these symptoms of assent as evidences of conviction, the oracle, with a self- complacent air, relapsed into silence, his kindred mingling their admiration for his ability in prescientia with reverence for our supposed paternity. Having arrived at the Ultima Thule of their curiosity we endeavored to satisfy ours without lessening the kindly reverence we inspired from our presumed descent from the gods. But learned nothing beyond the impression that the land extended, in the three opposed directions to the ocean, to the horizon, and that their country was the full of a moon nearer the setting sun, to which they invited us warmly to accompany them.
“‘Although still fancying that we were in a remote division of our own land, yet hopeless of regaining our homes, or intelligence of our people, we concluded to avail ourselves of their invitation, for an attempt to return by the ocean augured sure destruction. Nourished with fruits and wild game, which nature furnished and sustained without the aid of human labor, and nursed with the tenderest care we soon regained our strength. Signifying our readiness to accompany them, and desire to take with us our household lares, utensils, harvest, and fruit seeds, they brought, after the lapse of days, diminutive beasts of burden, which seemed united in equal relationship to the camel and goat. When the day of departure came, we bid tearful farewell to our vessel, then with the ready aid of our benefactors buried it from vision that it might escape desecration from wandering tribes.