quite pleasant, as though I were all right.  They even pulled down my eyelids, and looked, I suppose, to see if they were bloodshot; but it was not so.  At length they gave up; and I think that all were satisfied of my being in the most perfect health, and very robust to boot.  At last the old magistrate made me a speech of about five minutes long, which the other two appeared to think greatly to the point, but from which I gathered nothing.  As soon as it was ended, they proceeded to overhaul my swag and the contents of my pockets.  This gave me little uneasiness, for I had no money with me, nor anything which they were at all likely to want, or which I cared about losing.  At least I fancied so, but I soon found my mistake.

They got on comfortably at first, though they were much puzzled with my tobacco-pipe and insisted on seeing me use it.  When I had shown them what I did with it, they were astonished but not displeased, and seemed to like the smell.  But by and by they came to my watch, which I had hidden away in the inmost pocket that I had, and had forgotten when they began their search.  They seemed concerned and uneasy as soon as they got hold of it.  They then made me open it and show the works; and when I had done so they gave signs of very grave displeasure, which disturbed me all the more because I could not conceive wherein it could have offended them.

I remember that when they first found it I had thought of Paley, and how he tells us that a savage on seeing a watch would at once conclude that it was designed.  True, these people were not savages, but I none the less felt sure that this was the conclusion they would arrive at; and I was thinking what a wonderfully wise man Archbishop Paley must have been, when I was aroused by a look of horror and dismay upon the face of the magistrate, a look which conveyed to me the impression that he regarded my watch not as having been designed, but rather as the designer of himself and of the universe; or as at any rate one of the great first causes of all things.

Then it struck me that this view was quite as likely to be taken as the other by a people who had no experience of European civilisation, and I was a little piqued with Paley for having led me so much astray; but I soon discovered that I had misinterpreted the expression on the magistrate’s face, and that it was one not of fear, but hatred.  He spoke to me solemnly and sternly for two or three minutes.  Then, reflecting that this was of no use, he caused me to be conducted through several passages into a large room, which I afterwards found was the museum of the town, and wherein I beheld a sight which astonished me more than anything that I had yet seen.