WHAT DROWNING IS LIKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 24 October 1907, Page 4

WHAT DROWNING IS LIKE.

Fol'owing is the exj e ienc? of a gentleman who enjned esctatic visions whilst more -than hall drowned. He had been skating over rather thin ice, when the ice gave away, and he was suddenly plunged into the freezing water. -At first he struggled hard to force his wav back to the hole through which he had fallen., but finding all his efforts in vain, he ceased struggling and resigned himself to his fate. The water at once flowed into his lungs and stomach, and he lost normal consciousness. “ From the moment,” he writes, “ that 1 ceased to struggle tor life I ceased to feel any pain. I knew that I was dying, and I was astonished to find how pleasant it was. I had no longer any sensations of cold or suffocation. I felt that I was floating on a couch of exquisite softness. The most beautiful music I had ever heard sounded in mv ears. It was soft and sweet, and marvellously melodious. I was being gently carried upward, and unseen angels or spirits were discoursing sweet music to me. “ Then a soft, white light flooded ray eyes and filled tiie space about me entirely. I could not understand whence it came. There was . neither sun nor lamp. There was soraehing unearthly about it. yet .very soothing and delightful. It was a light that never was on land or sea. The music began to grow softer, but without dying away. Events of 1113' past life ran before my eyes like the scenes of a play. Strange to say, I only saw the pleasant things that had happened to me. I was so delightfully situated that I could only imagine pleasant things. I felt a desire to see all ray 7 old and deaririends, and immediately their faces began to press about me. I began to converse with them. lam not ordinarily a fluent speaker, but in my dying state I enjoyed a fluency 7 of speech such as I had never possessed before. I was able to express finest shades of thought and feeling with the precision of a pbilospher and the eloquence of a poet. I was able to express all the clever and noble ideas which I had felt before, but had never been able to convert into distinct articulate speech. My friends, like myself, were gifted with an eloquence far beyond anything which I had known them to possess before. After a time the throng of my friends faded away and I was left alone with my sweetheart. Her face wore a a anxious expression, as if she were vaguely aware that some disaster had happened to me. I told her that I was dying, hut that I was perfectly happy, and that I hoped we should meet again. “ Now,” said I, 11 we have still a little more time that we can spend together. Let us enjoy ourselves.” “Most willingly,” she answered. She smiled sweetly at me and then came ami nestled by my side. As we sat there, a most wonderful pageant unrolled itself before us. We visited all the beautiful places on earth that we had longed to see and had planned to see when we had time and money 7 . We went to London and saw the shops, along the Strand, and after that we called at Buck-

ingham Palace, where the King and Queen received us most kindly. After that we passed over to the Continent, where we saw all the sites of Paris, climbed up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and viewed the tomb of Napoleon. We also witnessed the grandest theatrical performance we ever saw. We travelled on to the Mediterranean, stopped at Florence, Rome, Naples, and Venice. We journeyed leisurely through Switzerland, and made our way northward down the Rhine. Then we came home again. I had premonition that it was time to part from my sweetheart, although I had still no feeling of pain or fatigue. We kissed one another good-bye without any sadness, and she faded awav.

“Then came a period of absolute unconsciousness. From this I was suddenly awakened by the most excruciating pain I had ever suffered. The fact was, as I learned afterwards, that I had been rescued from the water, and that the strenuous methods of resuscitating the drowning were being applied to me. It was the moment of my return to life that caused me so much trouble and pain.”