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Death and its Mystery – After Death – Camille Flammarian

The account is particularly fantastic and unbelievable, and never the less it cannot be doubted ! Here is the picture:

The general was campaigning in the Punjab. One night, when the moon was full (there was that splendid tropical moonlight), he was alone, some distance from his camp. He was calmly smoking a cigar, when, on his left, he heard the sound of a trotting horse. About a hundred meters away, above the sunken road, he first saw a moving hat appear-evidently the horseman's hat, he thought. Soon afterward a group emerged full into the open ; there was a European in civilian dress, on a horse, accompanied by two native servants. The group approached at a good rate of speed.

General Barter cried, “Who goes there?" There was no answer.

The rider still came on with his followers. He was not more than four paces away when, upon a last commanding challenge, he stopped short and turned his face toward Barter. At once the general recognized in him a lieutenant whom he knew to have been dead for a year. With a quick glance he took in the whole picture.

The lieutenant was in full dress - a high hat, a white vest, etcetera - but, though he had been clean-shaven, the general saw that he now had whiskers under his chin. Besides this, he noted that he was much more corpulent than when he had known him. The lieutenant's mount also drew his attention; it was a vigorous mountain pony, brown, with a black tail and mane.

General Barter restrained himself no longer; he wished to banish all doubt as to this adventure, and he threw himself toward the fantastic horseman, across an intervening slope. But the earth gave way beneath his feet, he fell forward on his hands, and rose instantly. All had vanished!

The subsequent inquiry brought out the fact that the lieutenant had let his whiskers grow a short time before his death, and that he had become much stouter in his latter days.

General Barter learned, at the same time, that he had owned a horse, bred in the Punjab. This horse corresponded, point by point, to his description of the horse of his vision. This horse was also dead, having been killed through the imprudence of his master, who was known as a break-neck rider.

General Barter, who had lost sight of the lieutenant for some years, was completely ignorant of all these details. His memory, therefore, could not have aided his imagination to create the apparition, with all its special characteristics. Nor could the apparition have taken form in the mind of any telepathist, and have been reconstructed in every detail, without any error or omission.