“Ah, Banks! how jolly that would be!... There!” continued the captain, “my Rhenish castles are melting away; the town is crumbling to ruins, and we return to realities, seeing only a landscape in the kingdom of Oude, which the very wild animals have deserted.”
The sun, rising above the eastern horizon, quickly dissipated the magical effects of refraction. The fortresses, like castles built of cards, sank down with the hills, which were suddenly transformed into plains.
“Well, now that the mirage has vanished, and with it Hood’s poetic vein, shall I tell you, my friends,” said Banks, what the phenomenon presages?”
“Say on, great engineer!” quoth the captain.
“Nothing less than a great change of weather,” replied Banks. “The early days of June are usually marked by climacteric changes. T
