Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/68

 be called a nautical show-day, for we had not only seen the crew of the "Flying Dutchman" walking her deck,  but had been favored with mock suns and a mirage. The upper is the true sun, while the left-hand and right-hand appearances are the mock suns; but all these were equally bright, and it was hard to tell which was the true  one. These illusions continued for nearly half an hour. Mock suns, mock moons, halos, circles and half-circles,

MOCK SUNS.

zodiacal lights, the mirage, shooting stars, solar eclipses, gorgeous rainbows, the aurora australis, and other rare  and beautiful appearances are often to be seen in these  latitudes, and some of them are considered by the ignorant and superstitious natives the forerunners of war,  famine, or pestilence.

Some little time after we had a mirage of the ship or a reflection of the Peacock presented to us. There were three images of the ship in the air, one inverted, the