How long ago that was!" He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the place where I should begin: "Begin here--I've already told you what goes before." He was steeped in drowsiness by this time.

As I went out at his door I heard him murmur sleepily: "Give you good den, fair sir." I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure.

The first part of it--the great bulk of it--was parchment, and yellow with age.
I scanned a leaf particularly and saw that it was a palimpsest.
Under the old dim writing of the Yankee historian appeared traces of a penmanship which was older and dimmer still--Latin words and sentences: fragments from old monkish legends, evidently.
I turned to the place indicated by my stranger and began to read -- as follows: THE TALE OF THE LOST LAND.