the matters of which it treated.

The demand of the reader for a sight of the paper which could produce
such an effect upon a person who was not more than an ordinary dealer in
an Eastern market may by this time have become imperious; wherefore it
is at once submitted in free translation. Only the date is modernized.

"ISLAND IN THE OVER-SEA. FAR EAST. _May_ 15, A.D. 1447.

"Uel, Son of Jahdai.

"Peace to thee and all thine!

"If thou hast kept faithfully the heirlooms of thy progenitors, somewhere
in thy house there is now a duplication of the seal which thou wilt find
hereto attached; only that one is done in gold. The reference is to prove
to thee a matter I am pleased to assert, knowing it will at least put
thee upon inquiry--I knew thy father, thy grandfather, and his father,
and others of thy family further back than it is wise for me to declare;
and I loved them, for they were a virtuous and goodly race, studious to
do the will of the Lord God of Israel, and acknowledging no other;
therein manifesting the chiefest of human excellences. To which, as more
directly personal to thyself, I will add that qualities of men, like
qualities in plants, are transmissible, and go they unmixed through
many generations, they make a kind. Therefore, at this great distance,
and though I have never looked into thy face, or touched thy hand, or
heard thy voice, I know thee, and give thee trust confidently. The son
of thy father cannot tell the world what he has of me here, or that
there is a creature like unto me living, or that he has to do with me in
the least; and as the father would gladly undertake my requests, even