SENSATIONS OF A DROWNING MAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 272, 14 December 1876, Page 4

SENSATIONS OF A DROWNING MAN.

The following is a copy of a letter written by Captain Beaufort, R. N. (afterwards Admiral Beaufort), to a medical friend: — "My dear Sir, — The following circumstances which attended my nearly being drowned have been thrown together at your desire. Tbey had not struck me as being so singular as you seem to consider tbem, because from two or three persons who had been recovered from a similiar state I had heard a detail of feelings as nearly resembling my own as was consistent with the difference of constitutions and dispositions : — " Many years ago, when a youngster on board the Aquilloo frigate, alter sculling a little boat about Portsmouth Harbor, I was endeavouring to make her fast alongside the ship; but the tide being strong and the boat sheered off, I foolishly stepped on the gunwale in order to reach the ring of ooe of the scuttles. The boat of course upset, and I tumbled into the water, and, not knowing bow to swim all my efforts to lay hold of either the boat or the floating sculls were fruitless. The transaction had not been observed by the sentries on the gangway, and it was not until the tide bad drifted some distance astern of the ship that a man in the foretop saw the splashing in j water and gave the alarm. \ "The first lieutenant (the present Rear Admiral Oliver) jumped overboard. The carpenter followed his example, and tbe gunner hastened into a boat and pulled after us. With the violent but vain efforts to make myself he_»rd t I bad swallowed much water. My struggles to keep afloat bad exhausted me, and before any of my gallant preservers overtook me I had sunk below the surface, All exertion ceased, all hope fled, and I felt that I was drowning. So far these facts were partially remembered after my recovery, or were supplied by those who had recently witnessed the scene ; for during an interval of such agitation a drowning person is too much occupied by catching at every passing straw, or too much absorbed by alternate hope and despair, lo mark the succession of events very accurately. "Not so with the sensations which immediately followed. My mind had nndergone tbe sudden revolution which appears to you as remarkable, and which you desire to have described, and tbey now are as vividly fresh in my mind es if they had occurred but yesterday. From tbe moment that exertion ceased a calm feeling of the most perfect tranquility superseded the previous tumultuous eensatioas. It might bo called apathy, certainly not resignation, tor dying no longer seemed to me an evil, and I no longer thought of being rescued, nor was I in any bodily paio. On the contrary, my feelings were rather of a pleasant cast, aod may, perhaps, be inaptly compared to that dull but satisfactory state which precedes She sleep produced by fatigue. u Though the senses were thus deadened tbe activity of the mind seemed io be excited in a ratio tbat defies expression, and thought suceeded thought wilh a rapidity which is not only indescribable, but probably inconceivable, by anyone who has not been himself in a similar situation. The course of these thoughts I cao now in a great measure retrace. Tbe event wbich bad just taken place, the awkwardness that had produced it, the the bustle it had caused on board (for I had observed two persons leap out of tl>e chains), the effect it would have on coy affectionate father, the manner in wbicb he would disclose it to tbo rest of the family, and a thousand other circumstances connected with home, and immediately connected with the event —these were the first series of thoughts that occupied me, but ihey goon took a wider range — the events of the last cruise— a preceding one — a former shipwreck—the school where I had been educated — and up to all my boyish adventures and earliest pursuits. The tn< veiling back io time, every past incident glanced across my imagination in retrograde succession, not, however, in. mere outline, as here stated, but with .he picture fitted up with every i.ol__teral feature ; in short my whole life seemed placed before me in a kind of panoramic view, and each act oMt was accompanied by a consciousness of right an! wrong, or by reflections on its ■c. uses aod consequences. Indeed mauy trifling affairs which had loDg been lot gotten then crowded into my recollec*tions. "May we not infer that in the pro-* longed instant in which all this took place there is a faint indication of the almost inflnue power of memory with which we are to awaken hereafter, und thus be enabled or cotopelle. , to contemplate our past lives? Or miuht it not almost warrant the startling idea that death is only a change or niodifica tion of our existence, iv which there iB no real pause or interruption? It is a_i_ciarkable that the innumerable ideas which rushed ioto my mind were (with the exception, at the outset, about the feeling of my family) all retrospective. Yet I had beea religiously brought up, tay hopes and fears of the next woi Id __ad lost nothing ot their t*srly slrength; .and at any other period jtho giost intense interest or the most awful an. _ci(pation would have been excited by the mere probabtil-ty that I waß standing on tbe threebholdof Meyuity; yet, in that inexplicable moment whep.l had a full conviction that I had already crossed at, not a single thought wandered ipto

the future. I waß wrapt entirely in past. The length of time that was occupied in this deluge of thoughts, or rather shortness of time into which they wore compressed, I am unable to state the precision, but certainly two minules could not hove elapsed from tbe moment of suffocation to my being hauled up, and I have always believed that when hauled up my consciousness terminated. The Btrength of the tide made it expedient to row tbe boat to another ship, where I underwent the usual operations; and, as my submersion had been brief, I understood that I was very quickly restored to animation. While life was returning my feelings were painfully the reverse of those I have endeavored to describe. A single but miserable confused belief that I was still drowning dwelt on my mind, instead of the multitude of clear and definite ideas which bad flashed across it before. A hopeless and doubting anxiety, a kind of horrid nightmare, seemed to press heavy on every faculty and to prevent tbe formation of a siugle distinct thought; and it was witb extreme difficulty that I at length convinced myself that I was really alive. Again, instead of being free from all physical suffering, I was tortured by dull but deep paio; aud though I have sinoe been severely wounded in all parts of my body, and have been subjected to severe surgical discipline, I consider that my sufferings at that time were far greater if not in acute intensity, at least in general distress. The effect of one of these wounds forms a striking contrast to the principal circumstances in the foregoing narrative, and still helps to illustrate what appears to be peculiar circumstauces of suffocation. " In a boarding affair at night I was shot by a musket, the muzzle of which was actually plaoed against my side, and I lay in the position in which I fell for some hours belore any assistance was procured. Aware that my lungs had been grazed, enduring great agony from many balls which had entered, and becoming weaker from some deep sword cuts, I at length fainted. Now it will be obvious to you that the overwhelming sensation which accompanies faintiDg must have produced full conviction tbat I was dying; yet nothing in the smallest degree resembling the operation of my mind when drowning took place; and when I came to my senses I returned to a full conviction of my real state. I have now obeyed your . desire, if not sufficiently, at least laith-^ fully."

*« — _. . ' _. _ _» _g» In 1840 there arrived in Hobson's Bay a family of eleven — father, mother, fire sons, and four daughters. Out of the original eleven, eight aie still alive, after a lapse of thirty-six years-, and from the niue children, ninety have been born in Victoria, of whom eighty-three are still living. " Atticus," who mentions this in the Lea-ier, says*.—" If every other married couple in the colony did as well as that there would be no necessity for any one ever talking about assisted immigration. An instance of throwing bread upon the waters aud having it returned after many days, has occurred (the Clunes Guaidian relates) in connection with the diminutive jockey who rode Briseis for the Melbonrne Cup. Some years ago the boy was wandering about the streets of Geelong a friendless waif, when Mr Wilson, with the kindheartedness for which he is so well known, took him borne, fed, clothed, and adopted him. Not only did he do this, but as the little fellow was totally ignorant of his parentage on either side, Mr Wilson bestowed upon him the aristocratic name of his own residence, St Albans, taught him to ride, and one of the results is that the lad, with the help of the game filly Briseis, lauded for his master the rich racing stake in question.. " Atlas," in the World, gives the following as one of the San Francisco modes of advertising: — " 'You must learn to be manly and resolute, my boy,' said a father to' his son; ' you must learn say to no.' Half an hour afterwards, when that father told his son to go and chop wood the boy said No with an amount of firmness that showed how he appreciated the paretal teaching. He wouldn't have said No, however, if the old man had given him 25 cents, and told him to go and have a brandy-cocktail at So-and-so's noted bar." The abolition of the provinces is beginning to have effect in Auckland, and the large staff of useless provincial officials, who have been the means of keeping that province in a continued state of impecuniosity, is being reduced. Several officers were discharged on Thursday, it being the end of the month. The officers of the Treasury remain for the present. Ths officers of Public Works and the bheep Inspectors there have received notice of the discontinuance of their services when the county system is established; but the Harbor Department will be taken over by the General Government at the end of the year. In Otago a very strange state of affairs exists. The Hon Mr M'Lean has proceeded there, and is acting as " Executive Officer." A writer in the Otago Witness thus describes the positiou at the present moment ;— " The Hon Mr M'Lean is not gatne to turn Mr Macaudrew out of the Superintend-iit's office; the Superintendent is not game to act as Superintendent; and so they are like hungry dogs growling round a hone, neither of them daring to go in and win. It is true that Mr Macaudrew sends all official correspondence that comes in up to Wellington, from whence it is duly returned to Mr M'Lean, who is next door down here!" This nonsense will have to come to an end at last, and as Mr Macaudrew should have learnt by this time that to continue the fight was useless, he should at once surrender his power. The efiect of the abolition is not so noticeable in the smaller provinces where things have been conducted iv an economical manner, and therefore no very great difference will be observed whilst there are so many local boards to manage matters. — Taranaki Herald.

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