Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/69

Rh a head like the Cheshire Cat appeared. It was vague, except for the smile. Presently it developed a body and legs, and became a lynx, with no feet, and eyes like glowing opals. It danced gravely round in a circle. Having inquired as to its exact position, I went out and kicked it. It vanished.

"The subject now saw, in the wake of the moon, which was now shining brightly, a boat containing two men fishing, with a light. I could see the men only with the telescope. Handing the subject the telescope, he said that he saw the boat three times as large without the glass. He now came out and leaned on the rail of the veranda. A cloud over the moon appeared to him an oared galley, five times the diameter of the moon. The oars were moving at the rate of 30 strokes to the minute.

"10:15 The galley having disappeared, the subject sat down inside the door again. A creature with a pointed nose and sharp ears popped its head constantly round the corner of the door. As the pulse was again imperceptible I administered a pint of strong coffee.

"10:45 A beautiful miniature Eastern city appeared, on the beach about twelve feet away. It was lit, apparently, by the sun; there were walls, citadels, mosques, minarets, houses, etc., all white, interspersed with green foliage. It was very compact, standing high above the walls, and about six feet in diameter. After some five or ten minutes an enormous tortoise, with a Greek key pattern in metal round the periphery of the carapace, walked against the city and right through it when it disappeared, and the tortoise with it.

"Shortly afterwards a vast horde of little black woolly animals, rather like black guinea-pigs with astrachan coats and glow-worms for eyes, poured up over the pebble ridge from the sea, and disported themselves over the beach, which was quite covered with them. After pouring up for a minute or two they vanished into thin air. Their motion was like that of a swarm of maggots discovered in turning over a dead animal. This was the last vision. The subject expressed a desire for a very large meal, ate a small one, went to bed, immediately slept a dreamless sleep, and was for two days very languid and weak, with a feeble and depressed pulse, and occasional palpitation. He will on no account try the experiment again.

"The most remarkable feature of the visions was that they all had 'a local habitation and a name.' They all appeared out of doors, most of them on the ground at a distance of twelve feet or so; they did not move when the head or eyes were turned, but kept exactly in their place. The visions were seen with either eye indifferently; with the eyes closed nothing was seen. Mechanical pressure on the eye-balls had no effect. At one period of the experiment the muscles of the eyes became relaxed, so that the subject saw near objects slightly doubled."