the battle-fields, and obtained a great deal of information from the
villagers and country people. I stayed here nearly two years, and had a
pretty hard time of it; but when I went away I took with me a very
valuable collection of notes.

"For many years I made no use of these notes; but being in Halicarnassus,
I heard of Herodotus, who was described as a great scholar and traveler,
and engaged in writing history. To him I applied without loss of time, and
I made a regular engagement, working several hours with him every day. For
this he paid me weekly a sum equal to about two dollars and seventy-five
cents of our present money; but it was enough to support me, and I was
very glad to have the opportunity of sending some of my experiences and
observations down into history. It was at this time that the love of
literary work began to arise within me, and in the next three or four
centuries after the death of Herodotus I wrote a number of books on
various subjects and under various names, and some of these, as
I mentioned before, were destroyed with the Alexandrian Library.

"It was in this period that I made the acquaintance of an editor--the
first editor, in fact, of whom I know anything at all. I was in Rhodes,
and there was a learned man there named Andronicus, who was engaged in
editing the works of Aristotle. All the manuscripts and books which that
great philosopher left behind him had been given to a friend, or trustee,
and had passed from this person into the possession of others, so that for
about a hundred years the world knew nothing of them. Then they came into
the hands of Andronicus, who undertook to edit them and get them into
proper shape for publication. I went to Andronicus, and as soon as he
found I was a person qualified for such work, he engaged me as his
assistant editor. I held this position for several years, and two or three
of the books of Aristotle I transcribed entirely with my own hand,