Another experience may serve to illustrate the fact that dreams are greatly intensified by illness, and that their duration may be exceedingly brief. Suffering, one night, from an attack of intestinal colic, marked by a rapid succession of painful paroxysms, between which, however, I fell asleep without the aid of medicine, I dreamed in one of these snatches of slumber that I was walking with my brother on the road to the volcano of Kilauea. In my hand were four diamond shirt buttons. They were white, and were covered with fine asbestos wool. My brother’s wife expressed serious doubts regarding their value; but I at once reminded her that the Emperor of China had given to the English Ambassador, for presentation to the Queen of England, a number of diamonds which were so rough and so cheap in appearance that the ambassador, who was also a marquis, could not suppress his contempt as he received the gift. But, when carried to London, and cut by the royal jewelers, their brilliance had astonished everyone. I now desired to deposit my diamonds with a jeweler, for safe-keeping. My brother recommended a house near the volcano, but I had seen another, a few squares further up the road, and accordingly resorted thither. Not finding any satisfactory evidence of business, I retraced my steps to the place first recommended. Entering the door, I found myself in a narrow room, with a long, low counter on one side. Behind this were several men, and several cases filled with jewelry. I handed my buttons to a large, good-looking fellow, who was bustling around in his shirt-sleeves. He immediately put one of the jewels into his mouth, when I heard something crack, as if either his teeth or the diamond had split. Consoling myself with the recollection that, if broken, a diamond could be mended with cement, I asked for a certificate of deposit. While this was being written, the entire building slipped away from over us, and glided down the slope of the mountain, towards the ocean, leaving us, and all that had been within the house, uncovered in the open air. This did not disconcert any one. The jeweler finished his writing; I pocketed the receipt, and with my brother pursued our walk through the mountain forests beyond the crater of the volcano. Presently we arrived at an eminence from which we could look down upon the ocean, and could see the line of the coast prolonged for many miles on either side of a cape of land. The western coast was very grand--mountain promontories rising behind each other as far as the eye could reach. Having feasted our eyes with this magnificent panorama of earth and sea and sky, we turned away in the direction of a grove, in which was visible a large building of stone, with castellated walls, and turrets with pointed roofs at the corners. My brother informed me that this was a German settlement, called Little Clacius. Approaching the castle, we were received in a magnificent hall by a beautiful woman