Monday, September 17, 2007. A Voyage to the Inner World.

Monday, September 17, 2007. I FEAR the seemingly incredible story which I am about to relate will be regarded as the result of a distorted intellect superinduced, possibly, by the glamour of unveiling a marvelous mystery, rather than a truthful record of the unparalleled experiences related by one Olaf Jansen, whose eloquent madness so appealed to my imagination that all thought of an analytical criticism has been effectually dispelled. It is not my intention to attempt a disc.

Monday, September 17, 2007. MY name is Olaf Jansen. I am a Norwegian, although I was born in the little seafaring Russian town of Uleaborg, on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the northern arm of the Baltic Sea. My parents were on a fishing cruise in the Gulf of Bothnia, and put into this Russian town of Uleaborg at the time of my birth, being the twenty-seventh day of October, 1811. My father was a man fully six feet three in height, and weighed over fifteen stone.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007. I TRIED to forget my thirst by busying myself with bringing up some food and an empty vessel from the hold. Reaching over the side-rail, I filled the vessel with water for the purpose of laving my hands and face. To my astonishment, when the water came in contact with my lips, I could taste no salt. I was startled by the discovery.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007. WE learned that the males do not marry before they are from seventy-five to one hundred years old, and that the age at which women enter wedlock is only a little less, and that both men and women frequently live to be from six to eight hundred years old, and in some instances much older. The people are exceedingly musical, and learned to a remarkable degree in their arts and sciences, especially geometry and astronomy.