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CHAP. XLI.
Of the noise or sound of eccho, of one that narrowly escaped dro••••∣ning thereby, &c.
ALas! how many naturall things are there so strange, as to many seeme miraculous; and how many counterfeit matters are there, that to the simple seem yet more wonderfull? Cardane telleth of one Comansis, who comming late to a rivers side,* 1.1 not knowing where to passe over, cried out alowd for some body to shew him the foord•• who hearing an eccho to an∣swer according to his last word, supposing it to be a man that answered him and informed him of the way, he passed through the river, even there where was a deepe whirlepoole, so as he hardly escaped with his life; and told his friends, that the divell had almost persuaded him to drowne, himselfe.* 1.2 And in some places these noises of eccho are farre more strange than other, specially at Ticinum in Italy, in the great hall, where it rendereth sundry and manifold noises or voyces, which seeme to end so lamentably, as it were a man that lay a dying: so as few can be persuaded that it is the eccho, but a spirit that an∣swereth.
* 1.3The noise at Winchester was said to be a very miracle, and much won∣dering was there at it, about the yeare 1569, though indeed a meere natu∣rall noise ingendered of the wind, the concavity of the place, and other instrumentall matters helping the sound to seeme strange to the heaters; specially to such as would adde new reports to the augmentation of the wonder.