"One bright December morning these two toys of fortune said good-by to their kind hosts, and started on their long and perilous journey. A strong and handsome though small sail-boat had been provided for them. A number of Hili-lite youths--among them some of the former exiles--were to accompany them past the great antarctic continent; and for this piloting party a larger boat had been built. After many days, the continent was passed; and Pym and Peters, alone, began their wearisome voyage across the great Antarctic Ocean. Fortunately, in January they encountered a large schooner, which six weeks later, in February, landed them at Montevideo. Peters says that Montevideo was at that time--1830--little more than a walled fortress. This scarcely harmonizes with the fact that it was then, as now, the capital of Uruguay; but Peters appears to know what he is talking about. As I have said, at this place Pym and Peters parted, never to meet again. The younger man started for his home, and found an early grave; the older man sought new adventures, and he, at the age of eighty, still lives to tell of their adventures had in a country strange beyond man's credulity to believe." These were the last words spoken by Doctor Bainbridge on the subject of Peters' adventures. Two days later I said farewell to my American friends, the memory of whom has always been dear to me, and whom it has been my misfortune not again to meet. The day before my departure, I drove to Peters' home, and said to him good-by. I called on Doctor Bainbridge at his office; and Doctor Castleton I met on the street corner, where, from the window of my apartment in the Loomis House, I had first seen him. I hope that the later life of each of them has been a smooth one: I know that both were good men, and that one of them was a man of singular fascination. As I took my leave of Doctor Castleton, and after he had spoken of the death of Lilama, he said: "I trust, young man, that you are pleased with your discovery--I know that Bainbridge is;" and he accompanied the remark with a searching glance of those large black eyes, the meaning of which I could not then fathom, and the recollection of which has often puzzled me. Then he smiled, and said farewell. Doctor Bainbridge, when I had said my last words to him, spoke thus: "May you have a pleasant journey, and a loving welcome to your home. You will probably never return to America--or, even if you do, not to our little city. I wish I could think that some day we shall meet again, but we probably never shall. And yet," he continued, smilingly, "who knows! If not again in this life, or in this world, still in some new form, on some strange planet. It may be that on Venus the beautiful our hands shall once more clasp; or on some water-way of Mars the ruddy, as we pass in our gondolas, we may call a greeting to each other--or possibly to Poe, the bright unfortunate. I am sorry that you must leave us, and I wish you every happiness."