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GOOD NIGHTS
8 If lootild only lay me down to rert,: . < f
Crossing my weary hands upon my breast,
And shot my troubled eyes without a tear,
Knowing that they would nerer open here—►
How blissful it must be, both worlds in sight
To say my tired good night.
If only, from the fretting cares of Time,
X To tram eternal I at once may climb.
No longer count the graves wheron I tread,
But in one moment be all comforted—
If such, could be, what joy In upward flight,
To sing my tired good night.
This flooding rido of yearning* will rot
I cannot reach to touch the lips of Peace;
Nor can I gather to my sobbing heart
The white-winged angels God has set apart,
Yet haply I may find them all in sight
After some tired good night.
What wouder, then, that I should long .to
rest,
Crossing my weary hands upon my breast;
To shut my troubled eyes without a fear,
-Knowing that they would never open here:
To say to earth, with heaven alone in sight,
ify rapturous good night.
BURIED ALIVE.
How the Heathen Hindoo can Suspend
Animation.
Captain Osborne, in his work entitled
“The Court and Camp of Runjeet
Sing,” gives an account of a Fakir who
professes to have an extraordinary
power of suspending' animation in his
body for a great length of time, dur
ing which lie allowed himself to be
kept in a burial vault, apart from any
supply of air and food. The monotony
of our camp life, he says, was broken
this morning by the arrival of a very
celebrated character in the Puniaub, a
person we had all expressed* great
anxiety to see, and whom the Maha-
Rajah had ordered over from Urarut-
ser on purpose. He is a fakir, by
name, and is held in extraordinary
respect by the Sikhs, from Ilk alleged
• capacity of being able to bury himself
alive for any period oi time. So
sown over the spot, and sentries
placed round it.
The Maha-Rajah was, however, very
skeptical on the;subjeot, and twice in
the course of the ten months ,he re
ledonder ground, sent people to
lip, when he was found to be
ly the same position, and in a
state of perfectly suspended anima-
ion.
At the termination of the ten
months, Captain Wade accompanied
the Maha-Rajah to see him disinterred,
and states that he examined him per
sonally and minutely, and was con
vinced that all animation was perfectly
suspended. He saw the locks opened
ami the seals broken by the Maha-
Rajah, and the box brought into the
open air. The man was then taken
out, and on feeling his wrist and heart,
NOT THE SLIGHEST PULSATION WAS
-l '.stories, that we all felt. curious. to see
years,
1 able time ago several extracts from the
•'■letters of individuals 1 who had seen
the man in the Upper Provinces, ap
peared in, the Calcutta papers, giving
some account >of his extraordinary
powers, which ,,were at the time, nat
urally enough, luoked upon as mere
attempts at a hoax upon the inhabi
tants of Calcutta. Captain Wade,
political agent at Ludhiana, told me
that he was present at his resurrection
after an interment of some months;
General Ventura haviug buried him
in the presence of the Maha-Rajah
and many of his principal sirdars; and,
as far as* I can recollect, these were
the particulars as witnessed by Gen
eral Ventura:
After going through a regular
course of preparation, which occupied
seven dap, and the details of which
are too ^disgusting to dilate upon, the
fakir reported himself ' ; '
BEADY FOR INTERNMENT
in a vault which had befln prepared
for the purpose by order of the Maha-
Rajah. On the appearance of Run
jeet and his court, he proceeded to the
final preparations that were necessary
in their presence, and after stopping
with wax his ears and nostrils, he was
stripped and placed in a linen bag; and
the* last preparation concluded by
turn it g his tongue forwards, and thus
closing the gullet, he immediately died
away m a kind of lethargy. The bag
was then] closed, 1 and sealed with the
Runjeet*!^ seal, and afterwards placed
in a small deal box, which was also
locked and sealed. ' The box was then
placed in a vault, the earth thrown in
mid trod ddwn/and a crop, of barley
.. PERCEPTIBLE.
The first thing towards restoring
him to life was the forcing his tongue
back to it3 proper position, which was
done with some little difficulty by a
person inserting his finger and forcibly
pulling it back, and continuing to hold
it untd it gradually resumed its nat
ural place. Captain Wade described
the top of his head to have been con
siderably heated; but all other parts
of the body cool and healthy in appear
ance. Pouring a quantity of warm
water upon him constitutes the only
further measure for his restoration,
and in two hours’ time he is as well as
ever.
On my return to Simla, accident
placed in my hands the appendix to a
medical topography of Ludhiana by
Dr. Macgregor of the Horse Artil
lery, by whose permission I have ex
tracted the following account of the
former interments and resurrections of
the fakir: ' —
A fakir who arrived at Lahore
engaged to bury himself for any
length of time, shut up in a box,
ana without either food or drink.
Runjeet naturally disbelieved the
mans assertions, and was determined
to put them to
THE TEST. ' 1
For this puiyose the fakir was shut
up in a wooden box, which was placed
in a small apartment below the middle
of the ground; there was a folding-
door to his box, which was secured by
a lock and, key. Surrounding this
apartment, there was the garden-nouse,
the door of which was likewise lacked,
and outside the whole a high wall,
having its doorway built up with
bricks and mud. In order to prevent
any one from approaching the place, a
line of sentries was placed and relieved
at regular intervals. The strictest
watch was kept up for the space of
forty days and forty nights, at the ex
piration of which period the Maha-
Rajah, attended by liis grandson and
several of his sirdars, as well as Gener
al Ventura, Captain Wade, and my
self, proceeded to disinter the fakir.
The bricks and mud were removed
from the outer doorway; the door of
the garden-house was next unlocked;
and lastly, that of the wooden box
containing the fakir: the latter was
found covered with a white sheet, on
removing which the figure of the man
presented itself in a sitting posture ;
his legs and arms were pressed to his
sides, his legs and thighs crossed. The
.first step of the operation of resuscita
tion consisted in pouring over his head
a quantity of warm water; after this a
hot cake of otta (wheat flour) was
placed on the crown of his head; a posed ®f a layer of cork between two
plug of wax was next removed f»uiu layers of textile fabric, the whole be
one of his nostrils, and on this being ling gummed with india-rnhher and
ure of the body was much above the
natural standard of health. The legs
and arms being extended, and the eye
lids raised, the former were well rub
bed, and a little ghee was applied to
the latter; the eyeballs presented a dim
suffused appearance, Uke those of a
corpse. The man now evinced
SIGNS OF RETURNING ANIMATION.
The pulse became perceptible at the
wrist, whilst the unnatural tempera
ture of the body rapidly diminished.
He made several ineffectual efforts to
speak, and at length uttered a few
words, but in a tone so low and feeble
as to render them inaudible. By and
by his speech |ms re-established, and
he recognized some of the bystanders,
and addressed the Maha-Rajah, who
was seated opposite to him watching
all his movements. 1 When the fakir
was able to converse, the completion
of the feat was announced by tne dis
charge of guns and other demonstra
tions of joy. A rich chain of gold was
placed round his neck by Runjeet, and
ear-rings, baubles and shawls were pre
sented to him. However extraordina-
S r this fact may appear, both to the
uropeans and natives, it is difficult,
if not.impossible, to explain it on phys
iological principles. The man not
• ■nly denied his having tasted food or
drink, but even maintained that he
had stopped the function of respira
tion during the period of forty days
and nights. To all appearance this
long fasting had not been productive
of its usual effects, as the man seemed
to be in rude health, so that digestion
and assimilation had apparently pro
ceeded in the usual manner; but this
he likewise denied, and piously assert
ed, that during the whole time he had
enjoyed a most delightful trance.
It is well known that the natives of
Hindoostan, bv constant practice, can
bring themselves to exist on the
smallest portion of food for several
days; and it is equally true that, by
long training, the same people are
able to retain the air in their lungs
for some minutes; but how the func
tions of digestion and respiration could
be arrested for such a length of time,
appears unaccountable.
The Virginia Earthquake.
The Richmond engineer of the
James River improvement, Mr. H. D.
Whitcomb, makes a curious statement
concerning the earthquake on the 22d
of December, denying that it produced
any undulations in the surface of the
river. He sap: “The United States
engineer in charge of the improvement
has two registering tide-guage3—one at
the Chesapeake and Ohio wharves, and
the other at Dutch Gap. These guages
show the height of tide at every mo
ment in the twenty-four hours, and to
a fraction of an inch. They register
the waves made by passing steamers,
even the smallest tug, and the height
of such waves may be ascertained.
Neither of these guages showed the
slightest disturbance of the water-level
at or near the time of the shock or on
that night. The curve of the line is as
smooth and uniform as it ever is bv day
or night. I may say remarkably so.
Nevertheless, our machine’s boox above
and below this wharf was affected by
the shock.”
Substitute for Leather.—A sub
stitute for leather, of English manu
facture, was displayed at the recent
maritime exhibition in Paris, and re
ceived with much favor. It was corn-
done, the man breathed strongly
through it. The mouth was now open
ed, and the tongue, which had been
oloselv applied to the roof o': the
mouth, brought forward, and both it
and the lips anointed with ghee (clari
fied butter). During this part of the
proceeding, I could not feel any pulsa
tion at the wrist, though the tempera-
welded together. The process by
which it is manufactured is as follows:
Thin sheets of cork are painted upon
one side with two successive coats, of
india-rubber. Japanned cloth-canvas
is treated in the same manner, and
when dry its gummed surface is ap
plied to that of the cork-sheets. The
clean side of the cork is now treated
with two coats of the india-rubber; and
a linen or cotton fabric, after subjection
to the same process, is laid upon it, the
coated surfaces coming together. The
compound sheet is then submitted to
heavy, pressure between rollers, or
under!* stamper, or press, until it is
in effect a simple substance, having
strength, durability and flexibility.
The Origin of the Diamond.
Some philosophers have supposed
that diamonds are, in all probability, a
cosmic product—chips of origins l
creation, so to speak—which the
earth has picked up in the course of
her travels through space—in short,
they are of meteoric origin. To the
popular mind there must be something
plausible in the suggestion. Indeed,
what could be more plausible to those
whose knowledge of the diamond is
embraced by the one word—carbon—
and whose acquaintance with it is lim
ited to some little familiarity with the
appearance of the cut gem? How
pure, how hard, how brilliant! What
titter product could there be of the
heavenly spaces?
But facts are earthly and very
stubborn—prone ever to take the shine
out of splendid theories. It is true
that the diamond is a puzzle even to
chemists; that the mode of its forma
tion is a mystery: even its place in the
order of nature Is a matter of doubt.
Like amber, it is found among miner
als. Amber is known to be a vegetable
product; and the diamond is thought
by some to show strong evidence of a
similar origin. As surely as flies in
amber prove the presence of animal
life during some stage in the forma
tion of that singular substance, the
vegetable organisms found in diamonds
are proof that these gems were formed
amid surroundings not consistent with
the presence of vegetation, perhaps
in water—a supposition that finds
support not only in the fact of their
inclusion of organic matter, but still
more in the presence of dendrites, suoh
as form on minerals of aquatic origin.
Crystals of gold, iron, and other
materials, have also been found inside
of diamonds. Still other diamonds
are superficially impressed by sand
and crystals—which i leads some to
believe them to have been originally
soft, But it is quite as probable that
these foreign substances may have in
terfered in some way with a perfect
development of the diamond crystals,
forcing them to groy around—or partly
around—the obstructions. Though
supremely beautiful in its best estate,
the diamond appears to be put an
earthly product after all; subject, like
every thing else—even theories—to
earthly imperfections. There may be
a diamond factory up in the sky some
where, but the evidence of it is not
strong.
A Philadelphia milliner appren
tice went to visit her mother in the
country last Sunday, and when that
worthy matron beheld her child she
exclaimed: “ Isabel Marie Stephens,
what on airth do you mean coming
out in broad daylight with your gown
all kajummuxed up in a heap behind
•ye and all bound up that way in front
of ye ? And hain’t ye got no stockings
all of one color, that ye haf to wear
them zebra-colored things? Thought
ye was going to be a millinar. Sh’d
think ye’d married a barber, and was
playing up sign-board for him. Did
I ever think one of mv nrirlo would
come to this!”
“ ’Peaks to me you’ve got a putty
slim fire,” Mirandy,” said a spindling
youth the other night as he sat in the
front of the fireplace by the side of a
buxom young lady who had no earthly
use for him. “ Yes,” she said, as she
wickedly looked at the floor behind
him, “ it’s about all you and the fire
can do between you to get up a re
spectable shadow.”