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self with relating to the credulous nuns, for truths, all the strange stories which his imagination could invent. He related to them his supposed adventures, and penetrated every auditor with astonishment, while he talked of giants, savages, shipwrecks, and islands inhabited
"Do grow beneath their shoulders,"
with many other circumstances to the full as remarkable. He said that he was born in Terra Incognita, was educated at an Hottentot university, and had passed two years among the Americans of Silesia.
"For what regards the loss of my eye," said he, "it was a just punishment upon me for disrespect to the Virgin, when I made my second pilgrimage to Loretto. I stood near the altar in the miraculous chapel the monks were proceeding to array the statue in her best apparel. The pilgrims were ordered to close their eyes during this ceremony; but though by nature extremely religious, curiosity was too powerful. At themoment
