The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, Arthur Conan Doyle [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

"But they could not paddle all the way."

"No; they would run into the south-easterly trades. Then they made their way to Rarotonga in Tahiti. It was from here that they made for New Zealand."

"But how could they know New Zealand was there?"

"Ah, yes, how did they know?"

"Had they compasses?"

"They steered by the stars. We have a poem of theirs which numbers the star-gazer as one of the crew. We have a chart, also, cut in the rocks at Hawaii, which seems to be the plot of a voyage. Here is a slide of it." He fished out a photo of lines and scratches upon a rock.

"Of course," said he, "the root of the matter is that missionaries from Atlantis permeated the Pacific, coming across Central America, and left their traces everywhere."

Ah, Atlantis! I am a bit of an Atlantean myself, so off we went at scratch and both enjoyed ourselves greatly until time had come to rejoin the party and meet Mr. Wragge's wife, a charming Brahmin lady from India, who was one of the most gracious personalities I have met in my wanderings. The blue-turbaned, eager man, half western science, half eastern mystic, and his dark-eyed wife amid their profusion of flowers will linger in my memory. Mrs. Wragge was eager that I go and lecture in India. Well, who knows?

I was so busy listening to Mr. Wragge's Atlantean theories that I had no chance of laying before him my own contribution to the subject, which is, I think, both original and valid. If the huge bulk of Atlantis sank beneath the ocean, then, assuredly, it raised such a tidal wave as has never been known in the world's history. This tidal wave, since all sea water connects, would be felt equally all over the world, as the wave of Krakatoa was in 1883 felt in Europe. The wave must have rushed over all flat coasts and drowned every living thing, as narrated in the biblical narrative. Therefore, since this catastrophe was, according to Plato's account, not very much more than 10,000 years ago there should exist ample evidence of a wholesale destruction of life, especially in the flatter lands of the globe. Is there such evidence? Think of Darwin's account of how the pampas of South America are in places one huge grave-yard. Think, also, of the mammoth remains which strew the Tundras of Siberia, and which are so numerous that some of the Arctic islands are really covered with bones. There is ample evidence of some great flood which would exactly correspond with the effect produced by the sinking of Atlantis. The tragedy broadens as one thinks of it. Everyone everywhere must have been drowned save only the hill-dwellers. The object of the catastrophe was, according to some occult information, to remove the Atlantean race and make room for the Aryan, even as the Lemurian had been removed to make room for the Atlantean. How long has the Aryan race to run? The answer may depend upon themselves. The great war is a warning bell perhaps.

I had a talk with a curious type of psychic while I was in Auckland. He claimed to be a psychologist who did not need to be put en rapport with his object by any material starting point. A piece of clothing is, as a rule, to a psychometrist what it would be to a bloodhound, the starting point of a chase which runs down the victim. Thus Van Bourg, when he discovered by crystal gazing the body of Mr. Foxhall (I quote the name from memory) floating in the Thames, began by covering the table with the missing man's garments. This is the usual procedure which will become more familiar as the public learn the full utility of a psychic.

This gentlemen, Mr. Pearman, was a builder by trade, a heavy, rather uneducated man with the misty eye of a seer. He told me that if he desired to turn his powers upon anything he had only to sit in a dim room and concentrate his thought upon the matter, without any material nexus. For example, a murder had been done in Western Australia. The police asked his help. Using his power, he saw the man, a stranger, and yet he knew that it was the man, descending the Swan River in a boat. He saw him mix with the dockmen of Fremantle. Then he saw him return to Perth. Finally, he saw him take train on the Transcontinental Railway. The police at once acted, and intercepted the man, who was duly convicted and hanged. This was one of several cases which this man told me, and his stories carried conviction with them. All this, although psychic, has, of course, nothing to do with spiritualism, but is an extension of the normal, though undefined, powers of the human mind and soul.

The reader will be relieved to hear that I did not visit Rotorua. An itinerant lecturer upon an unpopular cause has enough hot water without seeking out a geyser. My travels would make but an indifferent guide book, but I am bound to put it upon record that Wellington is a very singular city plastered upon the side of a very steep hill. It is said that the plan of the city was entirely drawn up in England under the impression that the site was a flat one, and that it was duly carried out on the perpendicular instead of the horizontal. It is a town of fine buildings, however, in a splendid winding estuary ringed with hills. It is, of course, the capital, and the centre of all officialdom in New Zealand, but Auckland, in the north, is already the greater city.

I had the opportunity of spending the day after my arrival with Dr. Morrice, who married the daughter of the late Premier, Sir R. Seddon, whom I had known in years gone by. Their summer house was down the Bay, and so I had a long drive which gave me an admirable chance of seeing the wonderful panorama. It was blowing a full gale, and the road is so exposed that even motors are sometimes upset by the force of the wind. On this occasion nothing more serious befell us than the loss of Mr. Smythe's hat, which disappeared with such velocity that no one was able to say what had become of it. It simply was, and then it was not. The yellow of the foreshore, the green of the shallows, the blue mottled with purple of the deep, all fretted with lines of foam, made an exhilarating sight. The whole excursion was a brief but very pleasant break in our round of work. Another pleasant experience was that I met Dr. Purdey, who had once played cricket with me, when we were very young, at Edinburgh University. Eheu fugaces! I had also the pleasure of meeting Mr. Massey, the Premier, a bluff, strong, downright man who impresses one with his force and sincerity.

I had the privilege when I was at Wellington of seeing the first edition of "Robinson Crusoe," which came out originally in three volumes. I had no idea that the three-decker dated back to 1719. It had a delightful map of the island which would charm any boy, and must have been drawn up under the personal guidance of Defoe himself. I wonder that map has not been taken as an integral part of the book, and reproduced in every edition, for it is a fascinating and a helpful document.

I saw this rare book in the Turnbull Library, which, under the loving care of Mr. Anderson (himself no mean poet), is a fine little collection of books got together by a Wellington man of business. In a raw young land such a literary oasis is like a Gothic Cathedral in the midst of a suburb of modern villas. Anyone can come in to consult the books, and if I were a Wellingtonian I would certainly spend a good deal of time there. I handled with fitting reverence a first edition of "Lyrical Ballads," where, in 1798, Coleridge and Wordsworth made their entry hand in hand into poetical literature. I saw an original Hakluyt, the book which has sent so many brave hearts a-roving. There, too, was a precious Kelmscott "Chaucer," a Plutarch and Montaigne, out of which Shakespeare might have done his cribbing; Capt. Cook's manuscript "Diary," written in the stiff hand of a very methodical man; a copy of Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads," which is one of twenty from a recalled edition, and many other very rare and worthy volumes carefully housed and clad. I spent a mellow hour among them.

I have been looking up all the old books upon the Maoris which I could find, with the special intent of clearing up their history, but while doing so I found in one rather rare volume "Old New Zealand," an account of a Maori séance, which seems to have been in the early forties, and, therefore, older than the Hydesville knockings. I only wish every honest materialist could read it and compare it with the experiences which we have, ourselves, independently reported. Surely they cannot persist in holding that such identical results are obtained by coincidence, or that fraud would work in exactly the same fashion in two different hemispheres.

A popular young chief had been killed in battle. The white man was invited to join the solemn circle who hoped to regain touch with him. The séance was in the dark of a large hut, lit only by the ruddy glow of a low fire. The white man, a complete unbeliever, gives his evidence in grudging fashion, but cannot get past the facts. The voice came, a strange melancholy sound, like the wind blowing into a hollow vessel. "Salutation! Salutation to you all! To you, my tribe! Family, I salute you! Friends, I salute you!" When the power waned the voice cried, "Speak to me, the family! Speak to me!" In the published dialogue between Dr. Hodgson after his death and Professor Hyslop, Hodgson cries, "Speak, Hyslop!" when the power seemed to wane. For some reason it would appear either by vibrations or by concentrating attention to help the communicator. "It is well with me," said the chief. "This place is a good place." He was with the dead of the tribe and described them, and offered to take messages to them. The incredulous white man asked where a book had been concealed which only the dead man knew about. The place was named and the book found. The white man himself did not know, so there was no telepathy. Finally, with a "Farewell!" which came from high in the air, the spirit passed back to immaterial conditions.

This is, I think, a very remarkable narrative. If you take it as literally true, which I most certainly do, since our experience corroborates it, it gives us some points for reflection. One is that the process is one known in all the ages, as our Biblical reading has already told us. A second is that a young barbarian chief with no advantages of religion finds the next world a very pleasant place, just as our dead do, and that they love to come back and salute those whom they have left, showing a keen memory of their earth life. Finally, we must face the conclusion that the mere power of communication has no elevating effect in itself, otherwise these tribes could not have continued to be ferocious savages. It has to be united with the Christ message from beyond before it will really help us upon the upward path.

Before I left Wellington the spiritualists made me a graceful presentation of a travelling rug, and I