Mirage of Central India, 26T 



equalled but once. This occurred at Hissar, on the terrace of 

 James Lumsdaine's house, built amidst the ruins of the castle 

 of Feroz, 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 sublime. 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 emphatically called Hurchund Raja ca poori, or, 

 " the city of Raja Hurchund,"" a celebrated prince of the bra- 

 zen age of India. The power of reflection shown by this 

 phenomenon cannot be better described than by stating, that 

 it brought the very ancient Jggaroa, which is thirteen miles 

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



The difference then between the mirage and the see-Jcote 

 is, that the former exhibits a horizontal, the latter a columnar 

 or vertical stratification ; and in the latter case, likewise, a con-, 

 trast to the other, its maximum of translucency is the last 

 stage of its existence. In this stage, it is only an eye accus- 

 tomed 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. Monge gives 

 a philosophical account of this phenomenon in Napoleon's 

 campaign in Egypt ; and Dr Clark perfectly describes it in 

 his journey to Rosetta, when " domes, turrets, and groves, 

 were seen reflected on the glowing surface of the plain, which 

 appeared like a vast lake extending itself between the city and 

 travellers." It is on reviewing this account, that a critic has 

 corrected the erroneous translation of the Septuagint ; and 

 further dilated upon it in a review of Lichtenstein's travels in 

 Southern Africa, who exactly describes our see-kote, of the 

 magnifying and reflecting powers of which he gives a singular 



