"The first stage drew towards its termination. After some minutes I recovered my calmness, without headache, or any of the symptoms which accompany the use of wine, and feeling very much astonished at what had passed. Another half hour had scarcely elapsed, when I again fell under the influence of the haschisch. The vision this time was more complicated and extraordinary. Millions of butterflies, whose wings rustled like fans, flew about in the midst of a confused kind of light. Gigantic flowers with crystal calyces, enormous hollyhocks, gold and silver lilies arose, and burst into flowers around me with a crackling sound like that of bouquets of fireworks. My hearing was prodigiously developed; I heard the sound of color - green, red, blue, and yellow sounds struck me with perfect distinctness. A glass upset, the creaking of a chair, or a word spoken, howsoever low, vibrated and resounded like the rolling of thunder; my own voice appeared so loud that I dared not speak for fear of throwing down the walls, or bursting like a bomb; more than five hundred clocks chimed the hour with their flutelike voices. Every object gave forth a note of the harmonica or AEolian harp. I swam in an ocean of sound, wherein some passages of the Lucia and Barbiere floated, like little islets of light. Never before had I bathed in such beatitude; I was so encircled by its waves, so transported from all things earthly, so lost to self - that odious, ever-present witness - that I comprehended for the first time what might be the existence of elementary spirits, and angels, and souls released from this mortal coil. I was as a sponge in the midst of the sea; every instant waves of happiness washed over me, entering and departing through the pores; for I had become permeable, and, even to the smallest capillary vessel, my whole being was filled with the color of the fantastic medium in which I was plunged. Sounds, perfumes, and light reached me by multitudes of beams, delicate as hair, through which I heard the magnetic current pass.

"According to my calculation, this state must have lasted for three hundred years, for the sensations succeeded each other so numerously and powerfully, that the real appreciation of time was impossible. When the attack was over, I perceived that it had lasted a quarter of an hour.*

"What is very curious in the intoxicating effect of the hasch-isch is, that it is not continuous; it comes and goes suddenly - raises you to heaven, and places you again on earth, without any gradual transition; like madness, too, it has its lucid intervals. A third attack, the last and strangest, terminated my oriental soiree. In this, my sight was doubled. Two images of each object were reflected on my retina, and produced a complete symmetry; but soon, the magic paste being entirely digested, acted with more power on my brain, and I became completely mad for the space of an hour. All kinds of Pantagruelic dreams passed through my fancy; goat-suckers, storks, striped geese, unicorns, griffins, nightmares, all the menagerie of monstrous dreams, trotted, jumped, flew, or glided through the room. There were horns terminating in foliage, webbed hands; whimsical beings, with the feet of the arm-chair for legs, and dial-plates for eyeballs; enormous noses, dancing the Cachucha, mounted on chickens' legs. For myself, I imagined I was the paroquet of the Queen of Sheba, and imitated, to the best of my ability, the voice and cries of that interesting bird. The visions became so grotesque that I was seized with a desire to sketch them, which I did in five minutes, with inconceivable rapidity, on the backs of letters, cards, or any piece of paper on which I could lay my hands. One of them is the portrait of Dr.------, as he appeared to me, seated at the piano, dressed as a Turk, with a sun painted on the back of his vest. The notes are represented escaping from the instrument in the form of guns and spirals, capriciously intertwisted. Another sketch bears this inscription: 'An animal of hereafter.' It represents a living locomotive, with a swan's neck terminating in the jaws of a serpent, whence issue jets of smoke, with two monstrous paws, composed of wheels and pulleys; each pair of paws has a pair of wings; and on the tail of the animal is seated the Mercury of the ancients, who is confessing himself to be conquered, notwithstanding his heels. Thanks to haschisch, I have painted from nature the portrait of a goblin. Even now, I fancy I hear them whining and mowing at night in my old beauffet."*

* Many of these phenomena, and amongst others that of the duration of time, are mentioned in the picturesque descriptions given in the Opium-Eater.

The marvellous effects of haschisch being made known, we experimented on hypochondriacs, in presence of several of the faculty who had given most study to this substance. † The state of these patients was in no degree modified, and we do not think that the virtues attributed to this substance gained many partisans. Besides, its use is not without danger. The Eastern governments must have considered it to be great, to have interdicted its use. Let it not be forgotten, that Madden and Desgenettes saw several lunatics in the hospital, at Cairo, who had lost their reason simply from the use of haschisch.‡ Quite recently, the papers called attention to numerous cases of mental alienation noticed at Constantinople, owing to the use of haschisch.* It is not long since we read the following account in a public journal: -

* La Presse, 10th July, 1843. Every one will recognize in this description, a perfect similitude with Cases CXLII. and CXLV. For more ample details, examine the work of M. Aubert Roche, entitled De la peste et du Typhus de L'Orient, 1843, 1 vol. 8vo., and above all, the work of Dr. Morcau, on Haschisch.

† Annuaire de Therapeutique de M. Bouchardet, pour 1845, p. 32.

‡ Brierre de Boismont, Influence de la civilisation sur le developpement de la folie.

"A frightful scene occurred on the 30th of May, on board the Empress, a packet-ship of the Austrian Lloyd, on the run from Trebizond to Constantinople. The number of passengers was above two hundred, two-thirds of whom were Turks and Persians. Amongst them were two Affghan dervishes of Candahar. At three in the afternoon, their prayers being concluded, the dervishes were seized with a paroxysm of frenzy, the consequences of which were terrible. In an instant, they had shot a young Greek, stabbed an Armenian, and Lloyd's agent from Trebizond. Six other passengers were more or less dangerously wounded. Finally, by order of the captain, the sailors killed the dervishes with the bayonet. These furious madmen were from forty to forty-five years of age, and of the sect of the Schittes. They commenced the carnage without provocation. From the report of several passengers, it appears certain that they had become intoxicated with haschisch. For a time, the Turks and Persians on board appeared inclined to take part with them, but the energy of the captain happily prevented this."†

Indeed, a prolonged indulgence in this drug must necessarily have a fatal effect on the health. The momentary loss of reason, although it be intentional, presents but a melancholy spectacle.

There is a poisonous substance, which has also the power of producing hallucinations, called stramonium (datura stramonium), thorn-apple, which has been latterly recognized as their antidote, in imitation of that weapon of the olden time, which is said to have cured the wounds it made.