“Well, it was at Shíráz; I was in the society of some twenty matured dervishes, and the year was at the spring and the sun was set. I never hear a nightingale, nor smell a rose, but I can taste that kalyan of hashísh and tobacco. Not that I was conscious at the time of any stomachic qualm. Not more than half-a-dozen whiffs were enough to speed me on my way into a world in which this mortal flesh lay shuddering at the terrible aspect of things--terrible beyond the imagination of the unenlightened to conceive. Supper was brought in. Among the dishes laid before me was a plate of piláw, dome-shaped, having on top a multitude of round pieces of meat, and these, to my exceeding terror, came tumbling down the pyramid of white rice, owing to the carelessness of the servant in handling the dish. But what did I, in my excited fancy, behold, yá-Moulai? I thought I was at the foot of a snow-clad mountain, whose crest dwarfed that of Demavend, and from the summit thereof there came hurtling down on me huge boulders of massy rock. I cried aloud in terror, and tried to hide myself in the corner of the room. My friends, the dervishes, laid hold of me, and carried me into the compound, and flung me into the tank, and in so doing they cheated me to believe that a host of angels had rescued me from the avalanche, and, bearing me into Paradise, had cast me into the living waters of Salsabíl. For, on opening my eyes, I saw a heavenly houri, whose face shone as the face of the sun. Her feet were on the earth, but her head reached as high as the fourth heaven. How could I--a man of ordinary stature--make love to a houri whose height, even among the ladies of Paradise, must have been a swallow’s flight above the average? True, I might sit in adoration at her feet, but that a taller man than I would have the pleasure of kissing her lips seemed only too likely. This thought was blasphemy in itself; and no sooner did it creep into this unregenerate mind of mine than two angels caught me by the hands and threw me into the burning furnace of hell. And this sudden change in my fortunes corresponded with the actions of my friends in taking me out of the tank and putting me to bed, and applying a hot remedy to what they believed to be a cold disease. Yá-Allah, how I burned, but without consuming, in that fire of the unredeemed. I cried for help, but Allah--may I be His sacrifice--cast me still deeper into the hell of His displeasure, saying, ‘He who would worship me must worship me in soberness and sincerity! Eschew all narcotics, O Seyyid ’Alí, lest I leave thee here to perish in the flames.’ Then repentance wrung my heart so that the tears started to my eyes and overflowed. And when that happened a wind from heaven blew, and I caught sight of a cloud of sun-lit hair--the hair of the divine houri who had previously overawed me--and these radiant tresses were wafted by the wind within arms’ reach of my despair. I clutched them in these two hands. The