TOUCHING AN APPARITION. $9

Here is a case in which an apparition was touched
and felt, quoted from Moore's Life of Byron, Lord
Byron, who sailed with Captain Eidd to Lisbon in
1809, says that the Captain narrated to him the
following occurrence : —

This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his
berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something
heavy on his limbs ; and there being a faint light in the
cabin, could see, as he thought, distinctly the figure of
his brother, who was at that time in the naval service, in
the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched
across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the
senses, he shut his eyes, and made an effort to sleep ; but
still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he
ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying
across him in the same position. To add to the wonder,
on putting his hand forth to touch this form, he found the
uniform in which it appeared to be clothed dripping wet !

On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom
he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished ; but in a
few months after, he received the starthng intelligence
that on that night his brother had been drowned in the
Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appear-
ance, Captain Eidd himself did not appear to have the
slightest doubt

Lastly, I come to a remarkable instance, in which
it is highjy improbable that the apparition could have
been impressionally visible. The Eevd. J. S. Pollock,
M.A., of Birmingham, in his book Dead and G(ym
(Stock: London, 1874), says that the following
narrative had been previously published, but that
he derived it from private information: —

Mr. J. F. B. TinUng writes : — " One of my uncles was a
sea-captain, and at the time of my story was in mid-ocean,
on his way from Calcutta to Liverpool At this time his



6o SPIRITS BEFOllE OUR EYES.
