Lastly, there are those specially interesting cases of recovery from the apparent death of drowning, in which, although the mind has been keenly alive and active throughout, there was an entire absence of pain or other bodily suffering of any kind. The best authenticated of these instructive and suggestive instances is that of Admiral Beaufort, as described by himself in a letter to Dr. Wollaston.[13] When a youngster on board one of H.M. ships in Portsmouth harbour, he fell into the water, and, being unable to swim, was soon exhausted by his struggles, and before relief reached him, he had sunk below the surface. All hope had fled, all exertion ceased, and he felt that he was drowning. “From the moment that all exertion had ceased,” writes the admiral, “a calm feeling of the most perfect tranquillity superseded the previous tumultuous sensations--it might be called apathy, certainly not resignation, for drowning no longer appeared to be an evil. I no longer thought of being rescued, _nor was I in any bodily pain. On the contrary, my sensations were now of rather a pleasurable cast, partaking of that dull, but contented sort of feeling which precedes the sleep produced by fatigue._ Though the senses were thus deadened, not so the mind; its activity seemed to be invigorated in a ratio which defies all description--for thought rose after thought with a rapidity of succession, that is not only indescribable, but probably inconceivable, by any one who has not himself been in a similar situation. The course of these thoughts I can even now in a great measure retrace,--the event which had just taken place, the awkwardness that had produced it, the bustle it must have occasioned, the effect it would have on a most affectionate father, and a thousand other circumstances minutely associated with home were the first series of reflections that occurred. They then took a wider range--our last cruise, a former voyage and shipwreck, my school, the progress I had made there and the time I had misspent, and even all my boyish pursuits and adventures. Thus travelling backwards, every past incident of my life seemed to glance across my recollection in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature; in short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause or its consequences; indeed, many trifling events which had been long forgotten, then crowded into my imagination, and with the character of recent familiarity.” Certainly two minutes did not elapse from the moment of suffocation to that of being hauled up; and according to the account of the lookers on, he was very quickly restored to animation. “My feelings,” continues