e rarest possible occurrence, and greatly
admired and envied in all who were possessed of it. However that might
be, my watch was taken from me; but our peace was made, and I was
conducted back to the room where I had been examined. The magistrate
then made me another speech, whereon I was taken to a building hard by,
which I soon discovered to be the common prison of the town, but in which
an apartment was assigned me separate from the other prisoners. The room
contained a bed, table, and chairs, also a fireplace and a washing-stand.
There was another door, which opened on to a balcony, with a flight of
steps descending into a walled garden of some size. The man who
conducted me into this room made signs to me that I might go down and
walk in the garden whenever I pleased, and intimated that I should
shortly have something brought me to eat. I was allowed to retain my
blankets, and the few things which I had wrapped inside them, but it was
plain that I was to consider myself a prisoner--for how long a period I
could not by any means determine. He then left me alone.

CHAPTER VIII: IN PRISON

And now for the first time my courage completely failed me. It is enough
to say that I was penniless, and a prisoner in a foreign country, where I
had no friend, nor any knowledge of the customs or language of the
people. I was at the mercy of men with whom I had little in common. And
yet, engrossed as I was with my extremely difficult and doubtful
position, I could not help feeling deeply interested in the people among
whom I had fallen. What was the meaning of that room full of old
machinery which I had just seen, and of the displeasure with which the
magistrate had regarded my watch? The people had very little machinery
now. I had been struck with this over and over again, though I had not
been more than four-and-twenty hours in the country. They were about as
far advanced as Europeans of the twelfth or thirteenth century; certainly
not more so. And yet they must have had at one time the fullest
knowledge of our own most recent inventions. How could it have happened
that having been once so far in advance they were now as much behind us?
It was evident that it was not from ignorance. They knew my watch as a
watch when they saw it; and the care with which the broken machines were
preserved and ticketed, proved that they had not lost the recollection of
their former civilisation. The more I thought, the le