Part 15

Bessel, who observed it from the Koenigsberg observatory in Northern Germany, described the Comet’s appearance as that of “a blazing rocket, the flame from which was driven aside as by a strong gale, or as the stream of fire from the discharge of a cannon when the sparks and smoke are carried backwards by the wind.”

Struve at Koenigsberg and Kaiser at Leyden were the first to see the Comet with their naked eyes in the third week of September.

Immediately after the Comet became generally visible in the Old World the bubonic plague, known of old as the “Black Death,” broke out in Egypt. In the City of Alexandria alone 9,000 people died on one day. By the Moslems this calamity was generally attributed to the evil influence of the Comet.

In America the Comet became visible to the naked eye only late in the year. Then, on its approach to the Sun, it was lost to view and passed over to the Southern Hemisphere where it was next observed by Sir John Herschel in South Africa.

Shortly after its brief blaze over North America the great “New York Fire” laid waste the entire business section of the biggest city in the New World. All the commercial centre of the city, including the richest firms and largest commercial warehouses, were laid in ashes. The fire raged through days and nights. In all, 530 houses burned down and $18,000,000 of property was consumed. Owing to the intense cold, the sufferings of the homeless were pitiable.

Down in Florida, at the same time, Osceola, the chieftain of the Seminole Indians, called upon the Comet as a signal for war against the whites. The Indians called the Comet “Big Knife in the Sky.”

The war began with a bloody massacre of American soldiers under General Wiley Thompson at Fort King. All were slaughtered. Osceola scalped General Thompson with his own hands.

On the same day, Major Dade of the American Army, who was leading a relief expedition into Florida from Tampa Bay, was ambushed by the Indians near Wahoo Swamp and was massacred with his men. Of the whole expedition only four men escaped death.

Within forty-eight hours of this horrible massacre came another bloody Indian fight on the banks of the Big Withlacoochee.

With the passing of the Comet to the Southern Hemisphere, bloody wars broke out one after another in Mexico, Cuba, Central America, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. All those countries were in a welter of blood.

At the same time the American settlers of Texas declared themselves independent and made open war on Mexico. The war began with the bloody battle of Gonzales, in which 500 American frontiersmen fought and defeated over a thousand Mexican soldiers. This was followed by other fierce fights at Goliad and Bexar.

Next came the bloody massacre of the Alamo, when all of Jim Bowie’s and Davy Crockett’s American followers were killed in an all night fight. Out of 200 Americans every man fell at his post. This was the deed of blood on which Joaquin Miller wrote his stirring Ballad of the Alamo.

“Santa Ana came storming as a storm might come,— There was rumble of cannon; there was rattle of blade; There was cavalry, infantry, bugle and drum,— Full seven thousand, in pomp and parade, The chivalry, flower of Mexico, And a gaunt two hundred in the Alamo.”

One month before the final disappearance of the Comet, the Texas War came to an end with the bloody battle of San Jacinto, when Sam Houston, with 800 American frontiersmen, defeated 1,500 Mexicans, and made a prisoner of President Santa Ana of Mexico.

When the Comet had passed to the Southern Hemisphere, it was seen at its brightest in South Africa.

The pious Boers of Cape Colony understood it to be a sign from heaven and forthwith set out on their great trek across the Orange and Vaal rivers, where they founded the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republic.

Thus the Comet was the signal for the first blood drawn in the long fight between the British and Boers.

A little later, though, the Boers found another, more woeful significance for the blazing of the Comet.

Under the leadership of Piet Relief, a thousand Boer families had trekked across the Drakensberg Mountains into Natal. A solemn treaty of peace with the Zulu warriors was entered into with Dingaan, the chief of the Zulus at Dingaan’s Kraal. Suddenly the Zulus pounced upon the unsuspecting Piet Relief and his sixty-five Boer followers and massacred them to a man.

Then the Zulus, numbering some 10,000 warriors, swept out into the veldt and made for the Boer wagon trains. Near Colenso, at a spot called Weenen (weeping), in remembrance of the dreadful tragedy there perpetrated, the Zulus overwhelmed the Boer laager and slaughtered all its inmates—41 men, 56 women, 185 children and 250 Kaffir slaves.

After this bloody massacre, equalling in horror the Massacre of the Alamo on the other side of the world, the Comet of 1835-36 was seen no more.

1758-1759

This was the first return of the Comet predicted by Halley. Hence it must be reckoned as the first appearance of “Halley’s Comet” under his name.

It was first seen on Christmas night, 1758, by John Palitsch, a Saxon farmer, near Dresden, who was looking for it with a self-constructed telescope of eight-foot focus. The Comet did not become visible to the naked eye until well into 1759. It passed around the sun on March 12, 1759. After that it was seen throughout Europe during April and May, appearing at its brightest during the first week in May. Later it was seen to advantage in the Southern Hemisphere.

In Germany, where it was seen at its fiercest, the Comet was taken as a token of the bloody Seven Years’ War, which was then being fought between Frederick the Great and his enemies on all sides.

The ominous Comet had scarcely vanished from view when all Germany was overrun by marching armies from France, from Austria, from Russia.

The French, under the Duke of Broglie, overthrew the Germans, under the Duke of Brunswick, at Bergen, and seized the city of Frankfurt. Then came the bloody battle of Minden, in which two large French armies were beaten. Meanwhile the Russians were marching into Prussia, and another bloody battle was fought at Kay in midsummer.

Within a fortnight King Frederick the Great and his whole army were overthrown by the Austrians and Russians in the disastrous battle of Kunersdorf.