to make the
further trip to Alaska. After a very stormy voyage of two or three days
we reached Victoria one morning about six A.M. There was only one large
double-bedded room available at the hotel, and we took this on the
understanding that two separate rooms should be found for us before the
evening.

As we lay on our beds for a few hours of much needed rest, quite
suddenly I realised that I saw something abnormal in the air--just above
and in front of my head. I mentioned this with much surprise to my
companion, who at once suggested the effects of liver after a sea
voyage so tempestuous as ours had been. For the first few moments I was
inclined to agree with her, and said so; but very shortly my opinion was
altered by the fact that what I saw first as an indistinct blur
gradually assumed a definite shape, and I then found there were six
little swallows in front of me, apparently connected with each other by
a waving ribbon, or so it appeared to me.

Opening and shutting one's eyes did not affect the vision. There they
remained, both at the moment and for several succeeding years, during
which time I was constantly in the habit of seeing "_my birds_," as we
used to call them. About six months after their first appearance in the
pure, clear atmosphere of Victoria (Vancouver), I was driving across the
Blackheath Common on a very bright, frosty day, and looking out of the
open window of my carriage, I saw my six birds as usual; but for the
first time, parallel with them and lower down, were six new birds of
just the same size and appearance (about half-an-inch between the tips
of the wings).

A few days later the new birds and the old ones had amalgamated, and
twelve little swallows floated in the air before my eyes. I could not
see them in the house. It needed the background of uninterrupted sky
apparently to throw them into sufficient relief to be recognised. After
some years, this special sign was withdrawn, and others have taken its
place. For example, I have seen in the same way, during the last
fourteen years, an anchor, with the chain attached to it, and caught
through one end of the former, a short reaping hook. This, doubtless,
has some symbolical meaning. Near the anchor I see a sacrificial altar,
with flames rising up from it; then a triangle, with loops at the
corners, which I was once told was the sign of Nostradamus. Then an
old-fashioned mirror in a quaintly-shaped frame, and finally a long
staff, wi