I made up my
mind, at once, that this was of a simple species--such, however, as
would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely
insoluble without the key."
"And you really solved it?"
"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand
times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led
me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted
whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which
human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact,
having once established connected and legible characters, I
scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of developing their
import.
"In the present case--indeed in all cases of secret writing--the
first question regards the LANGUAGE of the cipher; for the
principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple
ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius
of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but
experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him
who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained.
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