n, towards evening, I entered Sandvig, I observed that the
inhabitants were collected in large flocks, to gaze at me. As I
approached them and spoke, they all took to flight, except one old man:
him I addressed, and begged of him to give me lodging at his house. He
asked me, "where I was born, whence I came, &c." I answered him, with a
sigh: "When I come to your house, I will relate events that will seem
incredible to you, and whose equals you will not find in any history."
The old man then took me by the hand and led me to his house. When there
I demanded drink; he gave me a glass of beer. When I recovered my
breath, after this draught, I addressed the old man thus: "You see
before you a human being, who has been a bolt for the changing winds of
fortune; one, who has been pursued by a fatality more controlling and
more unhappy than was ever experienced by mortal."

"Moral and physical revolutions may be effected in a moment, without
surprising men; but what has befallen me is beyond the reach of human
imagination!"

"It is the traveller's fate;" my landlord answered; "many strange events
and changes might happen on a voyage of sixteen hundred years."

I did not understand this, and requested him to tell me what he meant by
sixteen hundred years. He replied: "If one may believe history, it is
now sixteen hundred years since Jerusalem was destroyed, and I doubt
not, venerable man, that you were already of age at its destruction. If
what is said of you is true, you must have been born in the reign of
Tiberius. I know that this matter is rather supposed than proved. The
inhabitants of this place, however, believe you to be the shoemaker of
Jerusalem, celebrated in history, who, since the time of Christ, has
travelled about the world. Nevertheless, the more I look at you, the
greater resemblance I find to an old friend of mine, who twelve years
since perished on the top of a neighboring mountain." At these words, I
looked carefully at my host. In a moment the fog was cleared from before
my eyes. I saw before me my dear friend Abelin, in whose house, at
Bergen, I had spent many happy days. I ran to his embrace with
outstretched arms. "Then 'tis you, my dear Abelin! I can scarcely
believe my eyes. Here you see Klim again, who has just returned from the
subterranean world. I am the same, who twelve years since plunged into
the mountain cave." He fell upon my neck and with tearful eyes, demanded
where I had been and what had