"The Orientalists," he states, "have in consequence of the interdiction of wine sought that species of excitement which the Western nations derive from alcoholic drinks." He then proceeds to state how a few minutes after swallowing some of the preparation, a sudden overwhelming sensation took possession of him. It appeared to him that his body was dissolved, and that he had become transparent. He clearly saw in his stomach the hashish he had swallowed, under the form of an emerald, from which a thousand little sparks issued. His eyelashes were lengthened out indefinitely, and rolled like threads of gold around ivory balls, which turned with inconceivable rapidity. Around him were sparklings of precious stones of all colours, changes eternally produced, like the play of a kaleidoscope. He every now and then saw his friends who were round him, disfigured as half men, half plants, some having the wings of the ostrich, which they were constantly shaking. So strange were these that he burst into fits of laughter, and, to join in the apparent ridiculousness of the affair, he began by throwing the cushions in the air, catching and turning them with the rapidity of an Indian juggler. One gentleman spoke to him in Italian, which the hashish transposed into Spanish. After a few minutes he recovered his habitual calmness, without any bad effect, and only with feelings of astonishment at what had passed. Half an hour had scarcely elapsed before he again fell under the influence of the drug. On this occasion the vision was more complicated and extraordinary. In the air there were millions of butterflies, confusedly luminous, shaking their wings like fans. Gigantic flowers, with chalices of crystal; large peonies upon beds of gold and silver, rose and surrounded him with the crackling sound that accompanies the explosion in the air of fireworks. His hearing acquired new power; it was enormously developed. He heard the noise of colours. Green, red, blue, yellow sounds reached him in waves--a glass thrown down, the creaking of a sofa, a word pronounced low, vibrated and rolled within him like peals of thunder. His own voice sounded so loud that he feared to speak, lest he should knock down the walls or explode like a rocket. More than five hundred clocks struck the hour with fleeting silvery voice, and every object touched gave a note like the harmonica or the Æolian harp. He swam in an ocean of sound, where floated like aisles of light some of the airs of "Lucia di Lammermoor" and the "Barber of Seville." Never did similar bliss overwhelm him with its waves; he was lost in a wilderness of sweets; he was not himself; he was relieved from consciousness, that feeling which always pervades the mind; and for the first time he comprehended what might be the state of elementary beings, of angels, of souls separated from the body. All his system seemed infected with the fantastic colouring in which he was plunged. Sounds, perfume, light, reached him