It was ascertained that he must have been incarcerated in some dungeon, entirely shut out from the light of the sun, which gave him great pain.  The structure of his body, the tenderness of his feet, and the great difficulty and suffering which he experienced in walking, indicated beyond a doubt that he had been kept in a sitting posture, with his legs stretched straight out before him.  His sustenance had been bread and water; for he not only evinced great repugnance to any other food, but the smallest quantity affected his constitution in the most violent manner.  It was also evident that he had never come in contact with human beings, beyond what was necessary for supplying his immediate wants, and, strange to say, teaching him to write.

That these inferences were well-founded was proved by the subsequent disclosures of Caspar himself, after he had acquired a sufficient command of language.  The account he then gave was as follows.

“He neither knows who he is nor where his home is.  It was only at Nuremberg that he came into the world.  Here he first learned, that, besides himself and ‘the man with whom he had always been,’ there existed other men and other creatures.  As long as he can recollect, he had always lived in a hole, (a small, low apartment, which he sometimes calls a cage,) where he had always sat upon the ground, with bare feet, and clothed only with a shirt and a pair of breeches.  In his apartment, he never heard a sound, whether produced by a man, by an animal, or by anything else.  He never saw the heavens, nor did there ever appear a brightening (daylight) such as at Nuremberg, he never perceived any difference between day and night, and much less did he ever get a sight of the beautiful lights in the heavens.  Whenever he awoke from sleep, he found a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water by him.  Sometimes his water had a bad taste; whenever this was the case, he could no longer keep his eyes open, but was compelled to fall asleep; and when he afterwards awoke, he found that he had a clean shirt on, and that his nails had been cut.[C]

[Footnote C:  When he resided with Professor Daumer, a drop of opium in a glass of water was administered to him.  After swallowing a mouthful, he exclaimed, “That water is nasty; it tastes exactly like the water I was sometimes obliged to drink in my cage.”]

“He never saw the face of the man who brought him his meat and drink.  In his hole he had two wooden horses and several ribbons.  With these horses he had always amused himself as long as he was awake; and his only occupation was, to make them run by his side, and to arrange the ribbons about them in different positions.  Thus one day had passed the same as another; but he had never felt the want of anything, had never been sick, and—­once only excepted—­had never felt the sensation of pain.  Upon the whole, he had been much happier there than in the world, where he was obliged to suffer so much.  How long he had continued to live in