THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. I35 



I am of opinion, that he who can pass four months below 

 the ground without becoming a prey to corruption, may 

 also remain there for one year. Granting this, it is im- 

 possible to fix a limit to the time during which a suspen- 

 sion of the vital functions may continue, without injury to 

 their subsequent power. 



However paradoxical or absurd this statement may 

 appear, and however persuaded I may be that many a reader, 

 believing himself to be a wise man, will smile at the rela- 

 tion, I cannot, nevertheless, avoid confessing freely, that I 

 do not entirely reject all the details given respecting the 

 circumstance, for as Haller observes : — " In the interior of 

 nature no mortal can penetrate ; happy is he who knows 

 a small part, even of its surface." We find much credence 

 given to such phenomena in the most ancient traditions. 

 Who will not remember the history of Epimenides of Creta, 

 who, after a sleep of forty years in a grotto there, is re- 

 ported to have again re-entered the world from which he 

 had so long been separated ? Who will not remember also 

 the seven holy sleepers, who, according to a Vatican ma- 

 nuscript, were concealed in a grotto near Ephesus, in order 

 to escape the persecutions of the Christians, during the 

 reign of the Emperor Decius ; and who, 155 years sub- 

 sequently, in the time of Theodosius II, returned to con- 

 sciousness ? But even rejecting these traditions, have we 

 not also similar examples in the animal kingdom ? Have 

 not animals, especially toads, been detected in rocks, where- 

 in, according to the calculations made, they had been 

 enclosed for several centuries, in a state of sleep or torpor, 

 and which animals, after having been brought into the air, 

 have recovered their vitality ; and it is not necessary to re- 

 mind the naturalist of the fact, that many species of animals 

 invariably pass the winter season in a kind of sleep, awaking 

 iu the spring with renewed and unimpaired energies. 

 Among recent cases, which demonstrate the great en- 

 durance of human life, is the follwing relation . — At Vienna, 

 some years since, a Hungarian was, during a period of twelve 

 months, in a comatose state, and his jaw-bones were so 



