“Oh, kind and blissful mockery, when the manacled felon, on his bed of straw, is transported to the home of his innocent boyhood, and the pining and forsaken fair, is happy with her fond and faithful lover—and the poor man hath abundance—and the dying man is in joyous health—and despair hath hope—and those that want are as though they wanted not—and they who weep are as though they wept not.—But the fashion of these things passeth away.”  
“At home” may mean, that quarter-day has passed with all its terrors, accounts settled, bills filed, tax-collectors satisfied, and the horizon of finance clear and cloudless. There is no fear of duns or doctors, and John Thomas announces “at home.” Or it may mean, that having enrobed oneself in morning gown and slippers, filled and lighted our pipe, seated ourselves in an easy chair, placed our feet firmly and contentedly on the hearthrug, and commenced enveloping ourselves in a cloud like that in which Juno conveyed the vanquished Paris from the field to the presence of the fairest of the daughters of Greece, we feel, with reference to ourselves, and in despite of the rest of the world—“at home.” Or it may mean, that having made the “grand tour,” crossed the desert on a camel, or seen the lions of Singapore, Hong-Kong, and231 Shanghai, we are once more on our native soil, and no longer fear Italian banditti or Turkish plague, sandstorms or crocodiles, Chinese poisoners or bow-wow pie, that we breathe again, and are “at home”. Or it may mean half-a-dozen things beside. But to see a man at home, is to see him in all the gradations of light and shade, of sunlight and shadow, brighter and deeper, than when he covers his head and walks abroad to look at the sun.
 
Gunja is not at home in Europe. Notwithstanding the efforts made in England and France to introduce the Indian hemp into medical practice, and the asseverations of medical practitioners in British India, who have extolled its power as a narcotic and anodyne, it has never settled upon European soil. The drugs already in use to produce sleep and alleviate pain, still occupy their old popularity, undisturbed by the visit of a stranger, who, finding the reception too cold, has retreated. In France, certain experiments were made, and by leave of Dr. Moreau, we shall take advantage of them, and of the Journal of Psychological Medicine, to ascertain the effects of this drug on those who have used it.
 
Since the days of Prosper Albinus, both learned and unlearned have listened with wonder to the marvellous effects of those “drowsy syrups of the East,” when—
 
“Quitting earth’s dull sphere, the soul exulting soars
To each bright realm by fancy conjured up,
And clothed in hues of beauty, there to mix
With laughing spirits on the moonlit green;
Or rove with angels through the courts of heaven,
And catch the music flowing from their tongues.”
In Asia Minor an extract from the Indian hemp has been from time immemorial swallowed with232 the greatest avidity, as the means of producing the most ecstatic delight, and affording a gratification even of a higher character than that which is known there to follow on the use of opium. A small dose seems only to influence the moral faculties, giving to the intellectual powers greater vivacity, and momentary vigour. A larger dose seems to awaken a new sensibility, and call into action dormant capabilities of enjoyment. Not only is the imagination excited, but an intensity of energy pervades all the passions and affections of the mind. Memory not only recurs with facility to the past, but incorporates delusions with it, for with whatever accuracy the facts may be remembered, they are painted with glowing colours, and made sources of pleasure. The senses become instruments also of deception, the eye and the ear, not only are alive to every impression, but they delude the reason, and disturb the brain, by the delusions to which they become subject. Gaiety, or a soothing melancholy, may be produced, as pleasant or disagreeable sights or sounds are presented.
 
So much alive are the swallowers of haschisch to the effect of external objects upon the perceptive powers, that they generally retire to the depths of the harem, where the almas, or females educated for this purpose, add, by the charms of music and the dance, to the false perceptions which the disordered condition of the brain gives rise to. Insensibly the reason and the volition are entirely overcome, and yield themselves up to the fantastic imagery which affords such delight. Can we wonder at such people producing and admiring all the extravagancies of the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments?” Can we be surprised at their belief in a paradise for the future, which is at best but a voluptuary’s dream?
 
233
 
At the commencement of the intoxication produced by the hemp, there is the most perfect consciousness of the state of the disordered faculties. There exists the power of analyzing the sensations, but the mind seems unwilling to resume its guiding and controlling power. It is conscious that all is but a dream, and yet feels a delight in perfect abandonment to the false enjoyment. It will not attempt to awaken from the reverie, but rather to indulge in it, to the utmost extent of which it is capable. There seems an ideal existence, but it is too pleasurable to shake off—it penetrates into the inmost recesses of the body—it envelopes it. The dreams and phantoms of the imagination appear part of the living being; and yet, during all this, there remains the internal conviction that the real world is abandoned, for a fictitious and imaginative existence, which has charms too delightful to resist. To the extreme rapidity with which ideas, sensations, desires, rush across the brain, may be attributed the singular retardation of time, which appears to be lengthened out to eternity. Similar effects, proceeding, doubtless, from the same or similar causes, are noticed in the “Confessions of an Opium-Eater,” wherein he speaks of minutes becoming as ages.
 
Dr. Moreau gives singular illustrations of this peculiar state. On one occasion he took a dose of the haschisch previously to his going to the opera, and he fancied that he was upwards of three hours finding his way through the passage leading to it. M. de Saulcy partook of a dose of haschisch, and when he recovered, it appeared to him that he had been under its influence for a hundred years at least.
 
Whilst an indescribable sensation of happiness takes possession of the individual, and the joy and exultation are felt to be almost too much to be234 borne, the mind seems totally at a loss to account for it, or to explain from what particular source it springs. There is a positive sensation of universal contentment, but it is vain to attempt to explain the nature of the enjoyment. The peculiar motion appears to be wholly inexplicable. A sense of something unusual pervades every fibre, but all attempts to analyze or describe it are declared to be in vain. After a certain period of time the system appears to be no longer capable of further happiness, the sensibility seems thoroughly exhausted, a gentle sense of lassitude, physical and moral, gradually succeeds—an apathy, a carelessness, an absolute calm, from which no exterior object can arouse the torpid frame. These are the great characteristics of this stage. The most alarming or afflicting intelligence is listened to without exciting any emotion. The mind is thoroughly absorbed, the perception seems blunted, the senses scarcely convey any impression to the brain. A re-action has taken place, yet the collapse is unattended with any disagreeable feeling. The energies are all prostrate, yet there are none of those depressing symptoms which attend the last stages of ordinary intoxication. All that is described is an ineffable tranquillity of soul, during which it is perfectly inaccessible to sorrow or pain. “The haschisch eater is happy,” continues Dr. Moreau, “not like the gourmand, or the famished man when satisfying his appetite, or the voluptuary in the gratification of his amative desires; but like him who hears tidings which fill him with joy, or like the miser counting his treasures, the gambler who is successful at play, or the ambitious man who is intoxicated with success.”
 
All those who have tried the experiment do not speak in such glowing terms of the results. M. de Saulcey, who tried it at Jerusalem, says:—235—“The experiment, to which we had recourse for passing our time, turned out so utterly disagreeable that I may safely say, not one of us will ever be tempted to try it again. The haschisch is an abominable poison which the dregs of the population alone drink and smoke in the East, and which we were silly enough to take, in too large a dose, on the eve of New Year’s-day. We fancied we were going to have an evening of enjoyment, but we nearly died through our imprudence. As I had taken a larger dose of this pernicious drug than my companions, I remained almost insensible for more than twenty-four hours, after which I found myself completely broken down with nervous spasms, and incoherent dreams.”
 
It is not uncommon for illusions and hallucinations to occur during the early stage, when the senses have lost their power of communicating faithfully to the brain the impressions they receive.
 
Dr. Auber, in his work on the plague, narrates various instances of delusions occurring in the course of his administering hemp preparations as a relief in that disease. An officer in the navy saw puppets dancing on the roof of his cabin—another believed that he was transformed into the piston of a steam-engine—a young artist imagined that his body was endowed with such elasticity as to enable him to enter into a bottle, and remain there at his ease. Other writers speak of individuals similarly affected: one of a man who believed himself changed entirely into brittle glass, and in constant fear of being cracked or broken, or having a finger or toe knocked off; another, of a youth who believed himself growing and expanding to such an extent, that he deemed it inevitable that the room in which he was would be too small to contain him, and that he must, during the236 expansion, force up the ceiling into the room above. Dr. Moreau, on one occasion, believed that he was melting away by the heat of the sun, at another, that his whole body was inflated like a balloon, that he was enabled to elevate himself, and vanish in the air. The ideas that generally presented themselves to him of these illusions were, that objects wore the semblance of phantasmagoric figures, small at first, then gradually enlarging, then suddenly becoming enormous and vanishing. Sometimes these figures were subjects of alarm to him. A little hideous dwarf, clothed in the dress of the thirteenth century, haunted him for some time. Aware of the delusion, he entreated that the object which kept up the illusion should be removed—these were a hat and a coat upon a neighbouring table. An old servant of seventy-one, was, upon another occasion, represented by his eye to the brain as a young lady, adorned with all the grace of beauty, and his white hair and wrinkles transformed into irresistible attractions. A friend who presented him with a glass of lemonade was pictured to his disordered imagination as a furnace of hot charcoal. Sometimes the happiness was interrupted by delusions that affrighted him. Thus, having indulged himself with his accustomed dose, every object awoke his terror and alarm, which neither the conviction of his own mind nor the soothing explanations of his friends could diminish, and he was for a considerable length of time under the most fearful impressions.
 
“Through the darkness spread
Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which
Hung upon his flight.”
These are the immediate effects produced by this most extraordinary substance. There are others,237 however, still more singular, which have attracted the attention of travellers, and become the objects of intense curiosity. These are of a nature unknown in connection with any other substance, and have formed the basis of numerous marvellous narrations, that have astonished even the incredulous. Those who have seen the fearful symptoms betrayed during delirium tremens, and have heard the sufferers declare that they saw before them genii, fairies, devils, know how the senses may become the source of delusion, and hence may judge to what a disordered state of the intellect may lead. When the brain has once become disordered by the use of the narcotic hemp, it becomes ever afterwards liable to hallucinations and delusions, unlike those produced by anything else, save intoxicating liquours after an attack of delirium tremens. The mind then believes that it sees visions, and beholds beings with whom it can converse. The phenomena gradually develop themselves, until illusions take the place of realities, and hold firm possession of the mind, which would seem on all other points to be healthy and vigorous, but on this point, insane. So firm and so fixed becomes the belief, that neither argument convinces, nor ridicule shakes, the individual from his faith, in which a prejudiced or too credulous nature confirms him but the more.
 
The Arabs, especially those of Egypt, are exceedingly superstitious, and there is scarce a person, even among the better informed, who does not believe in the existence of genii. According to their belief there are three species of intelligent beings, namely, angels, who were created of light, genii, who were created of fire, and men, created of earth. The prevailing opinion is that Sheytans (devils) are rebellious genii. It is said that God created the genii two thousand years before Adam,238 and that there are believers and infidels among them as among men. It is held that they are aerial animals with transparent bodies, which can assume any form. That they are subject to death, but live many ages. The following are traditions of the Prophet concerning them. The genii are of various shapes, having the forms of serpents, scorpions, lions, wolves, jackals, &c. They are of three kinds, one on the land, one in the sea, one in the air. They consist of forty troops, each troop consisting of six hundred thousand. They are of three sorts, one has wings and fly; another, are snakes and dogs; and the third move about from place to place like men. Domestic snakes on the same authority, are asserted to be genii. If serpents or scorpions intrude themselves upon the faithful at prayers, the Prophet orders that they be killed, but on other occasions, first to admonish them to depart, and then if they remained to kill them. It is related that Aisheeh, the prophet’s wife, having killed a serpent in her chamber, was alarmed by a dream, and fearing that it might have been a Muslim Jinnee, as it did not enter her chamber when she was undressed, gave in alms, as an expiation, about three hundred pounds, the price of the blood of a Muslim. The genii appear to mankind most commonly in the shapes of serpents, dogs, cats, or human beings. In the last case, they are sometimes of the stature of men, and sometimes of a size enormously gigantic. If good, they are generally resplendently handsome, if evil, horribly hideous. They become invisible at pleasure (by a rapid extension or rarefaction of the particles which compose them) or suddenly disappear in the earth or air, or through a solid wall.
 
The Sheykh Khaleel El Medabighee related the following anecdote of a Jinnee. He had, he said, a favourite black cat, which always slept at the239 foot of his musquito curtain. Once, at midnight, he heard a knocking at the door of his house, and his cat went and opened the hanging shutter of the window, and called, “Who is there?” A voice replied, “I am such a one,” (mentioning a strange name) “the jinnee, open the door.” “The lock,” said the Sheykh’s cat, “has had the name pronounced upon it.” It is the custom to say, “In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful,” on locking the door, covering bread, laying down their clothes at night, and on other occasions, and this they believe protects their property from genii. “Then throw me down,” said the voice, “two cakes of bread.” “The bread-basket,” answered the cat at the window, “has had the name pronounced upon it.” “Well,” said the stranger, “at least give me a draught of water.” But he was answered that the water-jar had been secured in the same manner, and asked what he was to do, seeing that he was likely to die of hunger and thirst. The Sheykh’s cat told him to go to the door of the next house, and went there also himself, and opened the door, and soon after returned. Next morning the Sheykh deviated from a habit which he had constantly observed; he gave to the cat half of the fateereh upon which he breakfasted instead of a little morsel which he was wont to give, and afterwards said, “O my cat, thou knowest that I am a poor man; bring me then a little gold,” upon which words the cat immediately disappeared, and he saw it no more. Such are the stories which they believe and narrate of these genii; and there is scarce an indulger in haschisch whose imagination does not lead him to believe that he has seen or had communication with some of these beings.
 
Mr. Lane, translator of the “Arabian Nights,” ha............