ge of the race and name overpowers the
sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an
antediluvian man renewed.

All this, and much more than I can say or have time to say, the reader
must enter into before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which
these dreams of Oriental imagery and mythological tortures impressed
upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical
sunlight, I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all
trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical
regions, and assembled them together in China or Indostan. From kindred
feelings I soon brought Egypt and all her gods under the same law. I was
stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by
paroqueats, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for
centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the
priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of
Brahma through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Siva laid wait
for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed, they
said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at I was buried for a
thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow
chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed by crocodiles;
and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds
and Nilotic mud.

Over every form and threat and punishment brooded a sense of eternity
and infinity that drove me into an oppression as of madness. Into these
dreams only it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any
circumstances of physical horror entered. But here the main agents were
ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles; especially the last. The cursed
crocodile became to me the object of more horror than almost all the
rest. I was compelled to live with him, and--as was almost always the
case in my dreams--for centuries. And so often did this hideous reptile
haunt my dreams that many times the very same dream was broken up in the
very same way. I heard gentle voices speaking to me--I hear everything
when I am sleeping--and instantly I awoke. It was broad noon, and my
children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside--come to show me
their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed for
going out. I protest that so awful was the transition from the
detestable crocodile, and the other unutterable monsters and abortions
of my