Let us hasten to meet an objection, which cannot fail to be made against the motive on which we found the origin of the denomination of Assassins, as applied to the Ismailites. If the use of intoxicating substances, prepared from hemp leaves, is able to disturb the reason; if it throws a man into a sort of delirium, and makes him take dreams to be realities; how could it be proper for people who had need of all their _sang-froid_ and mental calmness, in order to execute the murders with which they were charged, and who were seen to proceed to countries most remote from their own residence, to watch many days for an opportunity favourable to the execution of their designs; to mix among the soldiers of the prince whom they were about to immolate to the will of their chieftain; to fight under his colours, and skilfully to seize the instant which fortune offered for their purpose? This, certainly, is not the conduct of delirious beings, nor of madmen, carried away by a fury which they are no longer able to control; such as travellers describe those who _ran a muck_, so much dreaded among the Malays and Indians. One word will suffice, in answer to this objection; and with this, Marco Polo’s account will supply us. This traveller, whose veracity is now generally acknowledged, informs us, that the Old Man of the Mountain educated young men, selected from the most robust inhabitants of the places under his sway, in order to make them the executioners of his barbarous decrees. The whole object of their education went to convince them, that, by blindly obeying the orders of their chief, they insured to themselves, after death, the enjoyment of every pleasure that can flatter the senses. For this purpose, the prince had delightful gardens laid out near his palace; there, in pavilions, decorated with every thing rich and brilliant that Asiatic luxury can devise, dwelt young beauties, dedicated solely to the pleasures of those for whom these enchanting regions were destined. Thither, from time to time, the princes of the Ismailites caused the young people, whom they wished to make the blind instruments of their will, to be transported. After administering to them a beverage which threw them into a deep sleep, and deprived them, for some time, of the use of their faculties, they were carried into those pavilions, which were fully worthy of the gardens of Armida; on their awaking, every thing which met their eyes, or struck their ears, threw them into a rapture, which deprived reason of all control over their minds; and uncertain whether they were still on earth, or whether they had already entered upon the enjoyment of that felicity, the picture of which had so often been presented to their imagination, they yielded in transport to all the kinds of seduction, by which they were surrounded. After they had passed some days in these gardens, the same means which had been adopted to introduce them, without their being conscious of it,