On these, and similar facts, Dr. Marsh remarks: “Disease is but a step toward dissolution, in which the vital powers are impaired; and, unless the malady be checked, by the use of proper means, a period will quickly approach when the chemical action will entirely prevail over the whole frame. Phosphorescent matter may be generated in organic bodies at a period of incipient decomposition; and when we consider that phosphuretted hydrogen undergoes spontaneous combustion, when brought in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and that the component parts of which this gas is formed exist in the body in great abundance, an easy solution is at hand, accounting for the luminous appearances which have been witnessed in dissecting-rooms, in burial-grounds, and in marine substances, as well as on the approach of dissolution.” The Arabs are well known as believers in wonders; and of one of their magicians, named Sadoomeh, the following story is told. “In order to give one of his friends a treat, he took him to the distance of about half-an-hour’s walk into the desert, on the north of Cairo, where they both sat down upon the pebbly and sandy plain; and the magician having uttered a spell, they suddenly found themselves in the midst of a garden, like one of the gardens of Paradise, abounding with flowers and fruit-trees of every kind, springing up from a soil covered with verdure brilliant as the emerald, and irrigated by numerous streamlets of the purest water. A repast of the most delicious viands and fruit was spread before them by invisible hands; and they both ate and drank to satiety, taking copious draughts of the various wines. At length the magician’s guest sank into a deep sleep, and when he awoke he found himself again in the pebbly and sandy plain, with Sadoomeh still by his side.” “The reader will probably attribute this vision,” says Mr. Lane, who relates the tale, “to a dose of opium or some similar drug; and such I suppose to have been the means employed; for I cannot doubt the integrity of the narrator, though he would not admit such an explanation; regarding the whole as an affair of magic, ‘jinn,’ or genii.”