Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.

Every thing being now ready, I made the fatal contact. Our success was complete! We felt a shock, as if something had fallen down the bank – a mound of muddy water rose, with a muffled, rumbling sound, and then burst out to a column of dark smoke. A splashing and bubbling succeeded, and then a great crimson patch floated on the water, like a variegated carpet pattern. Strange-looking fragments of scaly skin were picked up by the natives from the water's edge, and brought to us amidst a very general rejoicing. The exploded Mugger floated down the stream, and the current soon carried it out of sight. We were not at all sorry, for it looked such a horrible mess that we felt no desire to examine it.

Our sense of triumphant satisfaction was, however, sadly damped about a week afterward, when we received the mortifying announcement, that Sidhoo's Mugger was still alive, and on his old beat, apparently uninjured. It was evident that we had blasted the wrong Mugger! We consoled ourselves with the reflection, that if he were not Sidhoo's murderer, it was very likely he was not wholly innocent of other atrocities, and therefore deserved his fate.

Of course it was impossible to rest while Sidhoo's Mugger remained alive, so we were not long in preparing for a second expedition. This time we took the precaution of not charging the battery until we were certain that the bait was swallowed. The acid, diluted to the necessary strength, was, therefore, carried in one of those brown earthenware jars called gray-beards, which had come out to us full of Glenlivet whisky. We commenced dragging the kid up the stream, as before; but, having walked more than a mile without getting a bite, we were getting rather disheartened, and sat down to rest, struck a light, and smoked a cheroot. Hall laid down, having manufactured an impromptu easy chair out of his coil of rope, with the inflated goat-skin placed above it. My brother was not long in imitating his example, and I laid down under the shade of some reeds, near to the water's edge. The heat was oppressive, and we were discussing the probability of getting a bite that day, and lamenting that we had not brought some pale ale along with us, when, when, all at once, I got a sharp blow on the leg, while my brother came spinning down the bank like a teetotem – a companion picture to Hall; who was revolving down the opposite bank. The ropes and skins went rushing down the nulla at a tremendous pace. As soon as we recovered from the laughter into which we were thrown by this droll contretemps, we set off in pursuit, guided by the track which the inflated skins made in the water. On they went, dashing from side to side, as they had done in our first attempt. On coming to a place where the nulla made a sharp turn, they stood still under the high bank, on the inner curve of the bend. It unfortunately happened that the bank, near to which the skins were floating, was too precipitous for us to get near them, without starting the Mugger from his present position. With much labor, we detached some loose sods from the top of the bank, and sent them with a loud splash into the water, directly over where we imagined him to have taken up his quarters. This had the desired effect, for the skins began to move slowly down the stream, as if the Mugger were crawling leisurely along the bottom.

Leaving my brother with the coolies in charge of the battery, I ran on to where the bank was more shelving. By good luck, the stream was rushing up, after its sudden sweep, and sent a strong current against this bank. I had not waited many minutes, before the skins came floating round the corner, to where I was standing. I seized the one to which the wire was attached, desiring my brother to charge the battery, and bring it down. This he did much sooner than I could have expected; for, as the battery was now empty, one coolie was able to carry it on his head, while my brother took the jar of acid in his hand. It was evident from the motion of the other skin in the water that the Mugger was still moving – so no time was to be lost. I made the connection with the battery with one of the wires; in another instant the circuit was complete, and the Mugger's doom sealed.

There was a momentary pause – owing, I suppose, to some slight loss of insulation in the wires – then came the premonitory shock, then the rumble, the smoke, and the sparks; and a great bloated mass of flesh and blood rose to the surface of the water. Hall called out to us to drag it ashore, and see whether we could get any trace of poor Sidhoo. We tried by means of a bamboo pole to pull it to the bank, but the glimpse we got of it as it neared was so unutterably disgusting, that we pushed it off again, and allowed it to float away down with the current.

That this was Sidhoo's Mugger, there could be no doubt; for he was never seen or heard of in the neighborhood again.

A CHAPTER ON DREAMS

When we picture to ourselves a person lying in a state of profound sleep – the body slightly curved upon itself; the limbs relaxed; the head reclining on its pillow; and eyelids closed – it is wonderful to think what strange and startling imagery may be passing through the brain of that apparently unconscious being. The events of his whole life may hurry past him in dim obscurity; he may be revisited by the dead; he may be transported into regions he never before beheld; and his ideas visibly assuming phantasmal shapes, may hover round him like shadows reflected from another and more spiritual state of existence.

Let us draw the curtains gently aside, and study the physiognomy of sleep.

The countenance may, occasionally, be observed lighted up, as it were, from within by a passing dream – its expression is frequently one of peculiar mildness and benignity; the breathing may be slow, but it is calm and uniform: the pulse not so rapid as in the waking state, but soft and regular; the composure of the whole body may continue trance-like and perfect. There is, indeed, no sign of innocence more touching than the smile of a sleeping infant. But, suddenly, this state of tranquillity may be disturbed; the dreamer changes his position and become restless; he moans grievously – perhaps sobs – and tears may be observed glimmering underneath his eyelids; his whole body now seems to be shaken by some inward convulsion; but, presently, the strife abates; the storm-cloud gradually passes; he stretches his limbs, opens his eyes, and, as he awakes, daylight, in an instant, dispels the vision, perhaps leaving not behind the faintest trace or recollection of a single incident which occurred in this mysterious state.

But what are dreams? Whence come they? What do they portend? Not man only, but all animals, it is presumed, dream, more or less, when they are asleep. Horses neigh, and sometimes kick violently; cows, when suckling their young calves, often utter piteous lowings; dogs bark in suppressed tones, and, from the motions of their paws, appear to fancy themselves in the field of the chase; even frogs, particularly during summer, croak loudly and discordantly until midnight, and then retire, and become silent. Birds also dream; and will sometimes, when frightened, fall from their roosting-perch, or flutter about their cage, in evident alarm. A bullfinch, says Bechstein, belonging to a lady, was subject to very frightful dreams, which made it drop off its perch; but no sooner did it hear the voice of its affectionate mistress than it became immediately tranquil, and reascended its perch to sleep again. It is pretty certain that parrots dream. It is, indeed, a curious circumstance that the best way of teaching this bird to talk is to cover the cage over so as to darken it, and while he is going to sleep pronounce, audibly and slowly, the word he is to learn; if the winged pupil be a clever one, he will, upon the repetition of the lesson, in a morning or two, begin to repeat it.

Upon the same principle, school-boys commit their tasks to memory by reading them over the last thing before they go to bed. It is to be remembered that during sleep the mind may not be wholly under eclipse; for, although some of its faculties – such as perception, comparison, judgment, and especially the will, may be suspended – others (for example, memory and imagination), are often more active than in the waking state. But some persons, it is said, never dream. We are assured by Locke that he knew a gentleman who had an excellent memory, yet could not recollect ever having dreamed until his twenty-sixth year. Dr. Reid, for many years before his death, had no recollection of having ever dreamed. Dr. Eliotson also relates, apparently upon good authority, the case of a man who never dreamed until after he had a fever, in his fortieth year; and we ourselves know several persons who are not conscious of ever dreaming. Nevertheless, many contend that in all such cases dreams really occur, but that they escape the recollection; for they contend that it is impossible that the mind can, being an independent principle, ever be in a state of absolute rest. This is arguing within a very narrow circle. We must not forget that the intimate alliance of the mind with the body, subjects it to its general laws; the "heat-oppressed brain" requires rest to renew its energies, and the mind, of which it is the organ, in the mean time, may, as in profound sleep, remain perfectly quiescent. The lids of the outward senses are closed; a vail is drawn over the immaterial principle of our nature; and mind and body alike, for a period, lie in a state of utter unconsciousness.

Here, however, it may fairly be asked, how happens it that the same person will at one time remember, and, at another, forget his dreams? This circumstance may, we conceive, thus be explained:

Those dreams which occur in very deep sleep, and in the early part of the night, are not so likely to be remembered as those which happen toward morning, when the sleep is less profound; hence the popular notion that our morning dreams – which are always best remembered – are likely to prove true. Then, again, the imagery of some dreams is more striking, and actually makes a deeper impression than the incidents of other dreams. We are told by Sir Humphrey Davy, that, on one occasion, a dream was so strongly impressed upon his eye, that even after he had risen and walked out, he could not be persuaded of its unreal nature, until his friends convinced him of its impossibility. The effect of some dreams upon children is very remarkable; they are, it is believed, more liable to dreams of terror than grown persons, which may be accounted for by their being more subject to a variety of internal complaints, such as teething, convulsions, derangement of the bowels, &c.; added to which, their reasoning faculties are not as yet sufficiently developed to correct such erroneous impressions. Hence, sometimes, children appear, when they awake, bewildered and distressed, and remain for a considerable period in a state of agitation almost resembling delirium. The incidents which are conceived in dreams are indeed not unfrequently confounded by adults with real events; hence, we often hear people, in alluding to some doubtful circumstance, exclaim, "Well! if it be not true, I certainly must have dreamed it." We confess we have ourselves been puzzled in this way; the spell may be broken; but the impression made by the delusion still clings to us; its shadow is still thrown across our path.

The question therefore recurs, What are Dreams? Whence do they arise? We believe that the ideas and emotions which take place in the dreaming state may be ascribed to a twofold origin. They may arise from certain bodily sensations, which may suggest particular trains of thought and feeling; or they may be derived from the operations or activity of the thinking principle itself; in which case they are purely mental. The celebrated Dr. James Gregory – whose premature death was a great loss to science – states, that having gone to bed with a vessel of hot water at his feet, he dreamed of walking up the crater of Mount Etna, and felt the ground warm under him. He likewise, on another occasion, dreamed of spending a winter at Hudson's Bay, and of suffering much distress from intense frost; and found, when he awoke, that he had thrown off the bed-clothes in his sleep, and exposed himself to cold. He had been reading, a few days before, a very particular account of this colony. The eminent metaphysician, Dr. Reid, relates of himself that the dressing of a blister, which he had applied to his head, becoming ruffled, so as to produce pain, he dreamed that he had fallen into the hands of a party of North American Indians, who were scalping him. These were dreams suggested by sensations which, were conveyed from the surface of the body, through the nerves, until corresponding impression was produced on the mind. Upon the same principle, very strong impressions received during the day may modify and very materially influence the character of our dreams at night. Dr. Beattie states that once, after riding thirty miles in a very high wind, he passed a night of dreams which were so terrible, that he found it expedient to keep himself awake, that he might no longer be tormented with them. "Had I been superstitious," he observes, "I should have thought that some disaster was impending; but it occurred to me that the tempestuous weather I had encountered the preceding day might be the cause of all these horrors." Other and less obvious causes are in constant operation. A change in the weather – in the electrical state of the atmosphere – and its barometrical pressure – the temperature of the bedroom – arrangements of the bed-furniture – the adjustment of the bed-clothes – nay, the position of the sleeper, particularly if he cramp a foot or benumb an arm, will at once affect the entire concatenation and issue of his dreams.

Furthermore, impressions may be made on the mind during sleep, by speaking gently to a person, or even whispering in the ear. We ourselves, when in Italy, could on one occasion trace the origin of a very remarkable dream to our having heard, in an obscure and half-conscious manner, during sleep, the noise of people in the streets, on All Souls'-night, invoking alms for the dead. Dr. Beattie knew a man in whom any kind of dream could be produced if his friends, gently addressing him, afforded the subject-matter for his ideas. Equally curious is the circumstance that dreams may be produced by whispering in the ear. A case of this description is recorded by Dr. Abercrombie:

"An officer, whose susceptibility of having his dreams thus conjured before him, was so remarkable, that his friends could produce any kind of dream they pleased, by softly whispering in his ear, especially if this were done by one with whose voice he was familiar. His companions were in the constant habit of amusing themselves at his expense. On one occasion they conducted him through the whole progress of a quarrel, which ended in a duel; and when the parties were supposed to meet, a pistol was put into his hand, which he fired off in his sleep, and was awakened by the report. On another, they found him asleep on the top of a locker or bunker in the cabin, when, by whispering, they made him believe he had fallen overboard; and they then exhorted him to save himself by swimming. He immediately imitated the motions of swimming. They then suggested to him that he was being pursued by a shark, and entreated him to dive for his life. This he did, or rather attempted, with so much violence, that he threw himself off the locker, by which he was bruised, and, of course, awakened." Dr. Abercrombie adds, that the most remarkable circumstance connected with this case was, that after these and a variety of other pranks had been played upon him, "he had no distinct recollection of his dreams, but only a confused feeling of oppression or fatigue, and used to tell his friends that he was sure they had been playing some tricks upon him."

It appears, also – and the fact is very remarkable – that a similar kind of sensation will produce the same description of dream in a number of individuals at the same time. Hence different people will sometimes have the same dream. We read of a whole regiment starting up in alarm, declaring they were dreaming that a black dog had jumped upon their breasts and disappeared, which curious circumstance was explained by the discovery, that they had all been exposed to the influence of a deleterious gas, which was generated in the monastery. The effect of music, also, in exciting delightful dreams, has often been attested. A French philosopher whose experiments are reported by Magendie, according to the airs which he had arranged should be played while he was asleep, could have the character of his dreams directed at pleasure. "There is an art," says Sir Thomas Browne – in his usual quaint style – "to make dreams as well as their interpretations; and physicians will tell us that some food makes turbulent, some gives quiet dreams. Cato, who doated upon cabbage, might find the crude effects thereof; and Pythagoras might have had calmer sleeps if he had totally abstained from beans."

The influences of the day's occurrences, and the thoughts which have occupied the mind during the day, have been said to give a corresponding tone and coloring to our dreams at night. Thus the lover dreams of his mistress; the miser of his gold; the merchant of his speculations; the man of science of his discoveries. The poets of all ages and nations adopt this view. Virgil describes Dido forsaken by Æneas, wandering alone on a desert shore in pursuit of the Tyrians. Milton represents Eve relating to Adam the dreams which were very naturally the repetition of her waking thoughts. Petrarch invokes the beauty of Laura. Eloisa, separated from Abelard, is again happy in his company, even amid the "dreary wastes" and "low-browed rocks."

There can be no doubt that the dreams of many persons are very greatly influenced by the reflections and emotions they have experienced the preceding day; but this is by no means invariably the case. We have known persons whose dreams refer habitually to events which occurred to them, perhaps, twenty years ago, and upon whom recent events seem to possess no such influence. We have often been told by ladies happily and affectionately married, that while they were engaged, although their thoughts were naturally much set on their engagement, they never dreamed of their lovers. So, also, the father of a family, habitually impressed with a sense of his responsibility and affection toward his offspring, will sometimes dream often enough of his neighbor's children, but seldom or, perhaps, never, of his own. Try to dream on a given subject – resolve and fix the attention upon it – going to sleep, and no sooner are our eyelids closed, than fantastic fancy will conjure up the most opposite and incongruous imagery. We have heard this dream-problem explained by referring it to a principle of antagonism, which, waking or sleeping, may be observed in the animal economy. If a limb become fatigued by remaining too long in one position, it will be relieved by being thrown into the very opposite condition; if the eye fatigue itself by gazing intently on the disc of any bright color, and the eyelids close, the very opposite, or antagonistic color will be depicted upon the retina: in like manner, when our waking thoughts – in connection with the nerve matter, which is their material instrument – have exhausted their energy, we can easily conceive how the very opposite condition will be produced. Hence the most unconnected and preposterous train of imagery may arise from the very earnestness with which we desire a contrary effect. We dream of events which do not concern us, instead of those in which we are most deeply interested; we dream of persons to whom we are indifferent, instead of those to whom we are attached. But, in the midst of all this curious and perplexing contrariety, it is remarkable – and may be esteemed a proof of the immateriality of the mind – that we always preserve the consciousness of our own identity. No man dreams that he is a woman, or any other person than himself; we have heard of persons who have dreamed they were dead, and in a spiritual state; but the spirit was still their own – they maintained their identity. Sir Thomas Lawrence once made an interesting observation on this subject to Mrs. Butler – then Miss Fanny Kemble: he pointed out, in conversation, that he never heard of any lady who ever dreamed that she was younger than she really was. We retain in our dreams even the identity of our age. It has been said – we think by Sir Thomas Browne – that some persons of virtuous and honorable principles will commit, as they fancy, actions in their dreams which they would shudder at in their waking moments; but we can not believe that the identity of moral goodness can be so perverted in the dreaming state. We can, however, readily conceive that, when the mind is oppressed, or disturbed by the recollection of some event it dreads to dwell upon, it may be disturbed by the most terrific and ghastly images. A guilty conscience, too, will unquestionably produce restlessness, agitation, and awe-inspiring dreams. Hence Manfred, in pacing restlessly his lonely Gothic gallery at midnight, pictures to himself the terrors of sleep:

"The lamp must be replenished; even thenIt will not burn so long as I must watch.My slumbers, if I slumber, are not sleep,But a continuance of enduring thought,Which then I can resist not. In my heartThere is a vigil; and these eyesBut close to look within."

Contrition and remorse oppose his rest. If we remember right, it was Bishop Newton who remarked, that the sleep of innocence differed essentially from the sleep of guilt.

The assistance supposed to be sometimes furnished in sleep toward the solution of problems which puzzled the waking sense, opens up a curious subject of investigation. Cases of the kind have been recorded upon undoubted authority. Hence some philosophers, like Sir Thomas Browne and Addison, have been induced to suppose that the soul in this state is partially disengaged from the encumbrance of the body, and therefore more intelligent, which is a mere fancy – a poetical fiction. Surely it is absurd to suppose that the soul, which we invest with such high and perfect attributes, should commit such frivolous and irrational acts as these which take place so constantly in our dreams. "Methinks," observed Locke, "every drowsy nod shakes this doctrine." All we remark, is, that some of the ordinary mental faculties act in such cases with increased energy. But beyond this we can not go. We are informed by Cabains, that Franklin on several occasions mentioned to him, that he had been assisted in his dreams on the issue of many affairs in which he was engaged. So, also, Condillac, while writing his "Cours d'Etudes," states that he was frequently obliged to leave a chapter incomplete, and retire to bed: and that on waking, he found it, on more than one occasion, finished in his head. Condorcet, upon leaving his deep and complicated calculations unfinished, after having retired to rest, often found their results unfolded to him in his dreams. Voltaire assures us that he, like La Fontaine, composed verses frequently in his sleep, which he remembered on awaking. Doctor Johnson states that he once in a dream had a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. Coleridge, in a dream, composed the wild and beautiful poem of "Kubla Khan," which was suggested to him by a passage he was reading in "Purchas's Pilgrimage" when he fell asleep. On awaking he had a distinct recollection of the whole, and, taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines which have been so much admired.

One of the most striking circumstances connected with the human mind is the extreme lightning-like rapidity of its thoughts, even in our waking hours; but the transactions which appear to take place in our dreams are accomplished with still more incalculable rapidity; the relations of space, the duration of time, appear to be alike annihilated; we are transported in an instant to the most distant regions of the earth, and the events of ages are condensed into the span of a few seconds. The accidental jarring of a door, or any noise, will, at the same moment, it awakens a person, suggest the incidents of an entire dream. Hence some persons – Lord Brougham in particular – have supposed that all our dreams take place in the transition or interval between sleep and waking. A gentleman dreamt that he had enlisted as a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, tried, condemned to be shot, and, at last, led out for execution. After all the usual preparations a gun was fired; he awoke with the report, and found that a noise in an adjoining room had, in the same moment, produced the dream and awakened him. The same want of any notion of the duration of time occurs, more or less, in all dreams; hence our ignorance when we awake of the length of the night. A friend of Doctor Abercrombie's dreamt that he crossed the Atlantic and spent a fortnight in America. In embarking, on his return, he fell into the sea, and, awakening with the fright, discovered he had not been ten minutes asleep. "I lately dreamed," says Dr. Macnish, "that I made a voyage – remained some days in Calcutta – returned home – then took ship for Egypt, where I visited the cataracts of the Nile, Grand Cairo, and the Pyramids; and to crown the whole, had the honor of an interview with Mehemet Ali, Cleopatra, and Alexander the Great." All this was the work of a single hour, or even a few minutes. In one of the dreams which Mr. De Quincey describes – when under the influence of opium – "The sense of Space and in the end of Time were," he states, "both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c., were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was amplified to a sense of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of Time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one hundred years in one night; nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millenium, passed in that time; or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience." One of the miracles of Mohammed appears to be illustrative of the same phenomenon. We read, in the Koran, that the angel Gabriel took Mohammed, one morning, out of his bed to give him a sight of all things in the Seven Heavens and in Paradise; and, after holding ninety thousand spiritual conferences, he was brought back again to his bed; all which was transacted in so small a space of time that Mohammed, upon his return, found his bed still warm.