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. But, with the cipher now before us,
all difficulty is removed by the signature. The pun upon the word
'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the English. But for
this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the Spanish
and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most
naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it
was, I assumed the cryptograph to be English.
"You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been
divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such case
I should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter
words, and, had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely
(_a_ or _I_, for example), I should have considered the solution as
assured. But, there being no division, my first step was to ascertain
the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent. Counting all,
I constructed a table, thus:
Of the character 8 there are 33
; " 26
4 " 19
???) " 16
* " 13
5 " 12
6 " 11
?? 1 " 8
0 " 6
92 " 5
:3 " 4
? " 3
?¶ " 2
] " 1
"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is _e_.
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