An Arizona Mirage. A PERFECTLY TRUTHFUL NARRATIVE, CONCEIVED IN THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1857, 31 May 1884, Page 6

An Arizona Mirage. A PERFECTLY TRUTHFUL NARRATIVE, CONCEIVED IN THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE.

The beautiful mirage that waa seen last Monday by visitors to the Cliff House reminds me of some of the astonishing illusions produced by the mirage on the heated plains of Arizona. The most suiprising deceptions are practised in this way upon the simple-minded traveller unfamiliar with the country. He sees before him vast lakes with wooded shores in spots where the oldest inhabitant— well, the oldest inhabitant is a horned toad, which can live without vrator, and to which the low temperature of the shadow of a bush six inches high would be instantly fatal. Sometimes he will take his camp-kettle (I am speaking of the traveller now) and start oil confidently toward a clump of willows to get a drink for his mule, out of the spring that he knows he will find there. The mule watches him with a peculiarly tolerant smile for the first two or three hours of his journey, then unbuttons its harness, or hangs its pack saddle on a gopher hole and goes into camp and has a real good time ; for it knows the willows are a bunch of weeds over in New Mexico, and that by the time he has chased them out of that territory and abandoned the pursuit somewhere in Texas the Fourth of July will be along, and there will be a good deal of hard braying to do in celebration of American Independence. Sometimes the mirage oauses two ranges of inaccessible mountains to grow where but one ant-hill grew before ; and then again it amuses itself by bringing San Francisco to the San Carlos Agency, piles the New Jerusalem on top of it and populates the combination with flying elephants measuring sixteen miles from tip to tip. There's no end to the surprise parties engineered by the mirage in Arizona ; that territory is one of the best circus routes in the country, but I guess I assisted at the boss exhibition in 1874. I had been sent out to Arizona by the Government to shoot ducks for the Smithsonian Institution, and expected to do a little business on my own account in seals and walri (that's the plural of walrus) for the Alaska Commercial Company. I was a skilful taxidermist, having probably stuffed more ducks with bread and crumbs and garlic than any man in America. In order that the ducks might not be too much mangled, I was specifically instructed to " shoot everything in the left eye " — the institution being already rich enough in ducks' left eyes. One day I was riding along, about noon, i over an interminable oaotus plain, when, ascending a small sand ridge, I saw before me one of the most enchanting scenes that ever burst upon the eye of an unmarried man Before me spread a vast and tranquil ocean stretching from the shore line at my feet to the horizon. It was studded with magnificent islands, most of them wooded with a growth of palms whose tall, graceful trunks, each topped with a tuft of leafage, were accurately mirrored in the pellucid waters that lapped the sleeping isles. On some of these islands were great cities, with temples, towers, domes, and shining minarets, all complete and warranted. Strange, picturesque water craft with glistening sails moved lazily about in deep water, rode at anchor in the harbor, or were moored to the wharves at an expense of one hundred dollars a day, which went into a corruption fund to keep the Harbor Commissioners in office. I was lost in amazement and overwhelmed with admiration, and as my companion, a young sophomore from Harvard, joined me on the beach he broke into rapturous exclamations of " Thalassea 1 Thalasses 1 " Not having been with Xenophon in his famous retreat, I was unfamiliar with Greek, and am a little hard of hearing in that language anyhow. I remarked with withering scorn : "Molasses your grandmother I That is water." He staggered, fainted, pitched forward, and was drowned at my feet, perishing in his pride, without medical assistance. Just then I heard a familiar whirring sound and had the happiness to see an incalculable multitude of ducks of the sort known as Ganardus Smitiisonii settling down on the water, only a hundred yards from the shore. They swam about with great apparent delight, catching fish all the time, and within the hour I had shot them all. While I was thinking how to get the' ducks, I saw a long, low, black boat push out from a wooded headland, vigorously propelled by four men with paddles. Altogether there were twelve men in the boat. They were attired in the most picturesque costumes, glowing with gems and gorgeous with color. On their heads were crowns and tiaras of beaten gold that burned and flashed in the sun worse than a new tin pan. I looked upon those radiant inhabitants of an unfamiliar world w^th reverent awe, wondering if they voted the straight Democratic ticket at the Fall elections. I guess they did, for they were steering straight for my ducks. Well; I took up my trusty rifle again* and began to drop them out of the boat, and this appeared to affect them with a change of heart about the ducks, for by the time I had tumbled oat the ultimate galoot of the ex-

oursion the boat was a mile away, bottom up. About tb^s time a small cloud drifted across the face of the sun, and in a moment the v/holo fairy scene skipped out. Oeeau, islands, palm groves, cities with their temple? and things — the entire outfit vanished thence like a jackass rabbit trying to catch an early train. Before me lay the everlasting mesa, as dry as a chip and as bare as the top of a stove, which, also, it resembled in the matter of climate. Walking forward in hot sand up to my ankles, I gathered up my ducks and examined the bodies of the slain boatmen, lying in a line at intervals of several hundred feat, each with a bnUet hole through the geometrical centre of his left aye. Returning to what had been the shore, I buried my poor sophomore, hung my ropes o£ birds a«ross his mule, mounted my own and rode thoughtfully away. I know the objections that can be urged against this story— the drowned sophomore, the real ducks, the glorified gondoliers. Well, the sophomore was strangled by the mere force of his faith in the optical illusion, and the duoks were tempted out of the air and wrecked through a similar error. That only proves the liveliness of the mirage ; I should not have insulted the reader with a common one. As for the distinguished foreigners in the dugout, they were nothing in the world but the indigenous Elbnosed Apaches. You can get the same brand anywhere. — The Wasp.