CHAPTER XVII 



THE "SIXTH SENSE" 



THE recent disaster at San Francisco was so over- 

 whelming, and the destruction which followed it so 

 complete, that all side issues have for the time been 

 forgotten, and as yet no one seems to have troubled 

 to inquire whether either men or animals in the 

 doomed city experienced premonitory symptoms of 

 unrest and apprehension similar to those remem- 

 bered in the case of other great disturbances of earth 

 or air. 



But judging by the history of recent but less 

 serious natural catastrophes, such warnings could 

 scarcely have been absent. The day before the land- 

 slip at Amalfi, a lady who had been staying in the 

 hotel refused to remain there for another night be- 

 cause she felt certain that the earth was moving ; and 

 a number of cases are on record in which horses, dogs, 

 a monkey, and even ducks, showed signs of panic for 

 a day, two days, or even longer, before the great 

 earthquake on the Riviera in 1897. A lady at Nice 

 remarked the bad condition of the horse she usually 

 drove, and told her coachman to take it home and to 

 bring another in a brougham from the livery-stables 



for her. The hired horse seemed as timid and as 



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