There has been something very like the Spectre of the Brocken, seen on Souter Fell, a mountain about half a mile high, in Cumberland. One summer's evening, in the year 1743, as a farmer, named John Wren, and his servant were sitting at the door of his cottage, they saw a man with a dog furiously chasing some horses along a ledge on the side of the mountain which they knew was so narrow that a horse could hardly stand upon it. They seemed to go round one end of the mountain, and disappeared. The next morning the farmer and his servant went round the track which the horses and man had seemed to take, fully expecting to find that Well, they said nothing of what they had seen, and perhaps they almost forgot it by nearly the same season in the following year, when the servant, whose name was Daniel Strickett, saw one evening a whole troop of horsemen trot along the mountain-side, near the same spot. It seems that he had been laughed at by those to whom he had related the other apparition, so he was rather timid, and resolved to be well assured of the reality of this one before he mentioned it. He looked at the figures for a considerable time, and then called another person to witness the sight with him. Several others afterwards joined them, and continued looking at the aerial horsemen till it was quite dark. All these circumstances were attested before a magistrate in the year 1785: twenty-six persons are said to have been spectators of the sight. DOVER CASTLE WHAT A FRIEND OF PARLEY'S SAW. A gentleman with whom I am acquainted, who lives in the country, told me that he once left some labourers at the bottom of a very steep hill, whom he had ordered to do some earth work. As he was going down, intending to visit them again, about sun-set, he saw a part of the hill which he was descending, and one of the labourers wheeling a barrow upon the side of it, reflected on a cloud opposite with the greatest distinctness. Though it was quite impossible that he could see the men in their true position, he knew exactly what this man was about, and what work had been done, from the reflected image. DOVER CASTLE. Dover Castle stands upon the side of a hill, and when looked at from the side towards Ramsgate, its four turrets may be just seen peeping over WHAT HUMBOLDT SAW IN SOUTH AMERICA. When Humboldt was residing at Cumana, he frequently saw two small islands which lie off the coast, suspended in the air. He once saw some fishing boats seeming to float in the air for several minutes. In another place he and his companion saw the figures of cows in the air at a great height; and they were told by a person worthy of credit, that he had seen the forms of horses suspended in like manner, but with their legs upwards. WHAT CAPTAIN SCORESBY SAW IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. Captain Scoresby relates several remarkable appearances of a similar kind, one of which I will describe to you. He saw one morning the inverted image of a ship in the air, which he at once recognized to be that in which his father was sailing. "It was," says he, "so well defined, that I could distinguish by a telescope every sail, the general rig of the ship, and its particular character; insomuch that I confidently pronounced it to be my father's ship, 'The Fame,' which it afterwards proved to be; though on comparing notes with my father, I found that our relative position at the time, gave a distance from one another of thirty miles, being about seventeen miles beyond the horizon, and some leagues beyond the limit of direct vision." Many other such things have been related by APPARENT DISTANCE OF OBJECTS. If you have never noticed the fact, you will be surprised to observe what a great difference appears to exist in the distance of the same objects under different states of the atmosphere. I do not mean when it is merely clearer than at another time, but when it is equally clear, the same object will show much higher above the horizon, and therefore seem to be nearer to some given spot, than at other times. We who have been at sea, have often seen this when we have been approaching land; but you will better understand an instance which occurred at Hastings, on the coast of Sussex. The gentleman who related it was surprised one day to see a crowd of people running down to the sea-side, and on inquiry he found they were going in consequence of a report that the coast of France had become visible to the naked eye. He went down to the beach, and actually saw the coast of France so plainly as to be able to distinguish objects, and with a telescope he even clearly saw French fishing-boats at anchor, close to the shore. The illusion lasted for more than an hour, and occasionally grew faint and then brightened again. The distance is fifty miles, and Hastings would therefore be hidden from the opposite coast of France by the convexity of the earth; so that if a straight line were drawn from one to the other, it would pass through the sea. |
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