202 Foreign and Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



A high wind is alike adverse to the phenomenon, and it will 

 mostly be observed that it covets shelter, and its general appear- 

 ance is a long- line, which is sure to be sustained by some height, 

 such as if it required support. The first time I observed it was in 

 the Jesipoor country : none of the party had ever witnessed it in the 

 British provinces. It appeared like an immense walled town, with 

 bastions ; nor could we give credit to our guides when they talked 

 of the see-kote, and assured us that the objects were merely ' castles 

 in the air.* I have since seen, though but once, this panoramic 

 scene in motion, and nothing can be imagined more beautiful. 



It was in Kotah, just as the sun rose, whilst walking on the ter- 

 raced roof of the garden-house of my residence, as I looked towards 

 the low range which bounds the sight to the south-east, the hills 

 appeared in motion, sweeping with an undulating or rotatory move- 

 ment along the horizon, trees and buildings were magnified, and all 

 seemed a kind of enchantment. Some minutes elapsed before I could 

 account for this wonder, until I determined that it must be the masses 

 of a floating mirage, which had attained its most attenuated form, and 

 being carried by a gentle current of air past the tops and sides of the 

 hills while it was itself imperceptible, made them appear in motion. 

 But, although this was novel and pleasing, it wanted the splendour 

 of the scene of the morning, which I never saw equalled but once. 

 This occurred at Hissar, on the terrace of James Lumsdaine's house, 

 built amidst the ruins of the castle of Fero, in the centre of one 

 extended waste, where the lion was the sole inhabitant, that I saw 

 the most perfect specimen of this phenomenon. It was really sub- 

 lime. Let the reader fancy himself in the midst of a desert plain, 

 with nothing to impede the wide scope of vision ; his horizon 

 bounded by a lofty black wall encompassing him on all sides ; let 

 him watch the first sunbeam break upon this barrier, and at once, 

 as by a touch of magic, shiver it into a thousand fantastic forms, 

 leaving a splintered pinnacle in one place, a tower in another, an 

 arch in a third, -these in turn, undergoing more than kaleidoscopic 

 changes until the 'fairy fabric' vanishes. Here it was emphati- 

 cally called Hiirchuna Raja ca poori, or the city of Raja Hur- 

 chuna,' a celebrated prince of the brazen age of India. The power 

 of reflection shewn by this phenomenon cannot be better described 

 than by stating that it brought the very ancient Aggaroa, which is 

 thirteen miles distant, with its fort and bastions, close to my view. 



The difference, then, between the mirage and the see-kote is that 

 the former exhibits a horizontal, the latter a columnar or vertical 

 stratification, and in the latter case likewise, a contrast to the other, 

 its maximum of translucency is the last stage of its existence. In 

 this stage it is only an eye accustomed to the phenomenon that can 

 perceive it at all. I have passed over the plains of Meerut with a 

 friend who had been thirty years in India, and he did not observe a 

 see-kote then before our eyes ; in fact so complete was the illusion, 

 that we only saw the town and fort considerably nearer. 



