Karl Herwitz is a German. He is about fifty years of age, and one of the most original of characters. Since I have know [known] him, I have passed whole nights in listening to his adventures, which are in general as instructive as they are amusing. Married at a very early age, he left the military career for that of inventions. He had a most marvellous talent for conceiving novel machines, often of practical utility; but his soul was set upon perfecting a flying machine. To this he had devoted nearly his whole life. He made models, he tried experiments, he brought to bear all his prodigious knowledge of mathematics on the subject of travelling in air, with an enthusiasm, a childish earnestness, which is not uncharacteristic of genius. He studied every natural law which was likely to advance him towards the consummation of all his hopes and desires--namely, the ability to fly. At one time his little garden was turned into an aviary. He filled it with birds of various kinds, to study the mechanism of their powers of flight. There was the eagle and the dove, the vulture and the sparrow, all of which were made subservient to his darling object. He has often explained all this to me. "The Golden Eagle," he once said, "can cleave the air at the rate of forty miles an hour. Now, if I can succeed in imitating the mechanism by which he travels in space, exactly and efficiently, of course, my machine will move in the air at the same pace." What could I say? No argument, no warning, availed. Still he went on, hoping and working, and buying expensive tools and materials. He completed aërial ships one after another; and although none of them answered, he was never discouraged. At one time, however, he thought he had succeeded. His contrivance was a curious affair, shot out of a bomb; but it was about as buoyant as a shot, fell, and failed, disheartening everybody but the persevering projector. Still he did not wholly neglect useful productions, and several times made improvements in mechanism, and sold them for very good prices. But the money went as fast as it came. His winged Pegasus was a merciless Ogre, which swallowed up all the money the old German earned.