only by minute rays, in the midst of which he heard mystic currents whistling along. According to his calculation, this state lasted about three hundred years, for the sensations were so numerous and so hurried one upon the other, that a real appreciation of time was impossible. The paroxysm over, he was aware that it had only lasted _a quarter of an hour_. Another interesting account of the strange hallucinations produced by the drug is related by Dr. Moreau, who with two friends experimented with hashish. "At first," he states, "I thought my companions were less influenced by the drug than myself. Then, as the effect increased, I fancied that the person who had brought me the dose had given me some of more active quality. This, I thought to myself, was an imprudence, and the involuntary idea presented itself that I might be poisoned. The idea became fixed; I called out loudly to Dr. Roche, 'You are an assassin; you have poisoned me!' This was received with shouts of laughter, and my lamentations excited mirth. I struggled for some time against the thought, but the greater the effort the more completely did it overcome me, till at last it took full possession of my mind. The extravagant conviction now came uppermost that I was dead, and upon the point of being buried; my soul had left my body. In a few minutes I had gone through all the stages of delirium." These fixed ideas and erroneous convictions are apt to be produced, but they only last a few seconds, unless there is any actual physical disorder. "The Orientalist, when he indulges in hashish retires into the depth of his harem; no one is then admitted who cannot contribute to his enjoyment. He surrounds himself with his dancing girls, who perform their graceful evolutions before him to the sound of music; gradually a new condition of the brain allows a series of illusions, arising from the external senses, to present themselves. The mind becomes overpowered by the brilliancy of gorgeous visions; discrimination, comparison, reason, yield up their throne to dreams and phantoms which exhilarate and delight. "The mind tries to understand what is the cause of the new delight, but it is in vain. It seems to know there is no reality." Hardly two people experience the same effects from hashish. Upon some it has little action, while upon others, especially women, it exerts extraordinary power. While one person says he imagined his body endowed with such elasticity, that he fancied he could enter into a bottle and remain there at his ease, another fancied he had become the piston of a steam engine; under the influence of the drug the ear lends itself more to the illusion than any other sense. Its first effect is one of intense exhilaration, almost amounting to delirium; power of thought is soon lost, and the victim laughs, cries and sings or dances, all the time imagining he is acting rationally. The second stage is one of dreamy enjoyment followed by a dead stupor.