Ancient authors call the subjects of Hassan, _Haschichini, Heississini, Assissini, Assassini_, various forms of the same expression, which, in fact, has passed into French with a signification which recalls the sanguinary exploits of the Ishmaelians. In seeking for the etymology of this name, one must suppose that Haschichini is the Latin transformation of the Arabic word Hachychy, the name of the sect of which we are speaking, because the ecstacies during which they believed themselves removed to paradise were produced by means of _haschisch_ or _haschischa_. We know that this inebriating preparation, extracted from hemp, really produces the most strange and delicious hallucinations on those who use it. All travellers who have visited the East agree in saying that its effects are very superior to those of opium. We evidently must attribute to some ecstatic vision the supposed existence of the enchanted gardens, which Marco Polo described from popular tales, and which, of course, never existed but in the imagination of the young men, who were either mentally excited after fasting and prayer, or intoxicated by the haschischa, and consequently for a time lulled in dreams of celestial bliss which they imagined awaited them under the guidance of Hassan and his descendants. [Illustration: Fig. 318.--The Old Man of the Mountain giving Orders to his Followers.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Travels of Marco Polo," Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Library of the Arsenal of Paris).]