CHAPTER III. THE surprise occasioned by Caspar Hauser's first appearance soon settled down into the form of a dark and horrid enigma, to explain which various conjectures were resorted to. By no means an ideot or a madman, he was so mild, so obedient and so good-natured, that no one could be tempted to regard this stranger as a savage, or as a child grown up among the wild beasts of the forest. And yet he was so entirely destitute of words and conceptions, he was so totally unacquainted with the most common objects and daily occurrences of nature, and he showed so great an indifference, nay, such an abhorrence, to all the usual customs, conveniences, and necessaries of life; and at the same time he evinced such extraordinary peculiarities in all the characteristics of his mental, moral and physical existence, as seemed to leave us no other choice, than either to regard him as the inhabitant of some other planet, miraculously transferred to the earth, or as one who, (like the man whom Plato supposes) had been. bornand bred under ground, and who, now that he had arrived to the age of maturity, had for the first time ascended to the surface of the earth and beheld the light of the sun. Caspar showed continually the greatest aversion to all kinds of meat and drink, excepting dry bread and water. Without swallowing or even tasting them, the very smell of most kinds of our common food was sufficient to make him shudder or to affect him still more disagreeably. The least drop of wine, of coffee, or the like, mixed clandestinely with his water, occasioned him cold sweats, or caused him to be seized with vomiting or violent headache.* * It is much to be regretted that in the whole city of Nuremberg not a single individual was to be found who possessed scientific curiosity sufficient to induce him to make this person the subject of physiological inquiries. Even the chemical analysis of the saliva, or other substances ejected by this oung man, who had been solely fed on bread and A certain person made, somewhere, the attempt to force some brandy upon him on pretence that it was water; scarcely had the glass been brought to his lips, when he turned pale, sank down, and would have fallen backward against a glass door, if he had not been instantly supported.-Once when the prison keeper had prevailed upon him to take some coffee in his mouth, although he could scarcely have swallowed a single drop of it, his bowels were in consequence thereof repeatedly affected. A few drops of beer made of malted-wheat, though much diluted with water, gave him a violent pain in his stomach, accompanied with so great a heat that he was all over dripping with perspiration; which was succeeded by an ague attended with headache and violent eructa But water, might alone have furnished many not unimportant scientific results; which results would at the same time have verified, as it were with intuitive certainty, the highly important juridical fact that Caspar had been really fed on nothing but bread and water. at the time when the judicial authorities, after many fruitless endeavors on their part, were at length placed in a proper situation to engage in the examination of Hauser's case, every opportunity of making amends for what had been lost by such omissions had long passed by. tions. Even milk, whether boiled or fresh, was unpalatable to him, and caused him disgusting eructations. Some meat was once concealed in his bread; he smelt it immediately, and expressed a great aversion to it, but he was nevertheless prevailed upon to eat it; and he felt afterwards extremely ill in consequence of having done so. During the night, which, with him, commenced regularly with the setting, and ended with the rising of the sun, he lay upon his straw bed; in the day time he sat upon the floor with his legs stretched out straight before him. When in the first days, he saw for the first time a lighted candle placed before him, he was delighted with the shining flame, and unsuspectingly put his fingers into it; but he soon drew it back, crying out and weeping. Feigned cuts and thrusts were made at him with a naked sabre, in order to try what might be their effect upon him; but he remained immovable, without even winking; nor did he seem to harbor the least suspicion that any harm could thus be done to him.* * It is even said that by way of an amusing experiment, a pistol or some other piece of fire arms was once discharged at him. When a looking-glass was once held before him, he caught at his own reflected image, and then looked behind it to find the person whom he supposed to be concealed there. Like a little child, he endeavored to lay hold on every glittering object that he saw; and when he could not reach it, or when he was forbidden to touch it, he cried. Some days after his arrival, Caspar was conducted, under the escort of two police men, around the city, in order to discover whether he could recognise the gate through which he had entered. But, as might have been foreseen, he knew not how to distinguish the one from the other; and, upon the whole, he appeared to take no notice whatsoever of what was passing before his eyes. When objects were brought more than ordinarily near to him, he gazed at them with a stupid look, which, only in particular instances, was expressive of curiosity and astonishment. He was in possession of only two words which he occasionally used for the purpose of designating living creatures. Whatever appeared to him in a human form he called, without any distinction of sex or age, "bua;" and to every |