Genre:

Short Fiction, Drollery

Subjects:

Exploration, Scientific Practitioners, Societies, Analogy, Natural History, Collecting, Publishing, Wonder, Gender

    The narrator describes having been shipwrecked with 'Lord K—' in an immense but unknown country. The inhabitants sent them to the capital, 'Polaslos', together with several chests of clothes and hats which had been on the ship, and for which the almost naked inhabitants could see no use. The 'men of science' of Polaslia were summoned to inspect the shipwrecked people and the chests of clothes. They conjectured, from the diversity of hats, that the heads and brains of Europeans were very diverse in form. The narrator observes: 'This was sufficient to convince me in what errors the method of analogy may sometimes lead us' (9). Similar conclusions about Europeans were drawn from the shoes, some of which were sent to the city museum as evidence. 'A thick volume soon appeared, describing this species of animal [the European], with all his varities; and another on the tails that grew at the ends of the feet. The last-mentioned work produced a powerful sensation; and to pacify the ladies of Polaslia, a public notice appeared, stating that among the strangers who had recently arrived, there was not a single foot with a tail' (10).