In accordance with a prearranged plan I shall undertake a relation of some events which may serve to illustrate certain points. To do so will oblige me to be more prominently personal than I could wish, but you and our friends will excuse my using such means as may seem best fitted for the accomplishment of a desired end. At the time of my birth my father, H[a:]-Moûfih Ad[a:]ssi, was governor of the Province of Ondû. I being the first born of my parents was given the name of my father. You may not have been informed that on Ento nearly always the first born son takes the name of the father as the first born daughter takes the name of the mother. I am aware that with much of Ento's history of the past four centuries you are acquainted, so for the most part I shall confine myself to a relation of events occurring within the years of my mortal existence, and of those following my departure into Ento's Spirit World, where quickly I learned the law of return into mortal conditions, and thus through observation and association with recently freed spirits I have kept myself informed as to many things relating to Ento's peoples and affairs to which I may find it expedient to refer. During my youth I attended several Institutions of learning, but the greater part of my education I received in this Galarēs[a:] of Camariss[a:], and when my parents considered me sufficiently advanced in age and in my studies, I, with other youths under the care of a guardian, were permitted to travel through foreign countries, observing the peoples, their customs and attainments with such other features as might afford us a general knowledge of Ento. An exhaustive investigation of natural history possessing for me an absorbing interest, on my return home I besought and obtained permission of my parents to, in my own way, pursue the engrossing study which during the remainder of my mortal existence largely occupied my time and attention. At this moment it occurs to me that to avoid confusion of mind it may be well for me to use your standard of time. Also to state that I date my birth at a time corresponding to about the middle of your seventeenth century, hence am an Entoan of a comparatively modern time. Ere I began my journeyings a quarter of a century of my youth had elapsed, and the close of another twenty-five years found me still a wanderer over the lands of Ento. During all these years my restless mind and untiring investigations led me to an exploration not only of easily accessible climes, but also of the planet's frozen extremities. Doubtless you have become informed that air transports traverse the entire planet, and that wherever necessary or desirable, stations for the convenience of travel and commerce long have been established. Thus favored I pursued my travels until, save for one extensive equatorial region far westward of Indolois[a:], of which presently I shall speak, I had traversed the entire surface of Ento.