intensely
bitter and repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve
slowly on our tongues, and sat some time, quietly waiting the result. But,
having been taken upon a full stomach, its operation was hindered, and
after the lapse of nearly an hour, we could not detect the least change in
our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug
of hasheesh, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point,
proposed that we should take an additional half spoonful, and follow it
with a cup of hot tea, which, if there were really any virtue in the
preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was done, though
not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise
quantity which constituted a dose, and the limits within which the drug
could be taken with safety. It was now ten o'clock; the streets of
Damascus were gradually becoming silent, and the fair city was bathed in
the yellow lustre of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble court-yard below
us, a few dragomen and _mukkairee_ lingered under the lemon-trees, and
beside the fountain in the centre.

I was seated alone, nearly in the middle of the room, talking with my
friends, who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove, at the
farther end, when the same fine nervous thrill, of which I have spoken,
suddenly shot through me. But this time it was accompanied with a burning
sensation at the pit of the stomach; and, instead of growing upon me with
the gradual pace of healthy slumber, and resolving me, as before, into
air, it came with the intensity of a pang, and shot throbbing along the
nerves to the extremities of my body. The sense of limitation---of the
confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own flesh and
blood--instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and
tumbled into ruin; and, without thinking what form I wore--losing sight
even of all idea of form--I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent
of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues
before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded
into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the
vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the
fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven
rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was--though I
thought not of that at the time--like a revelation o