"of the confinement of our senses within the
bounds of our own flesh and blood, instantly fell
away; the walls of my frame were burst out-
ward, and tumbled into ruin; and, without
thinking what form I wore-losing sight of every
idea of form-I felt that I existed through a
vast extent of space. It is difficult to describe
this sensation, or the rapidity with which it
mastered me. In the state of mental exaltation
in which I was then plunged, all sensations, as
they rose, suggested, more or less coherent
images. They presented themselves to me in a
double form; one physical, and therefore, to a
certain extent, tangible; the other spiritual,
and therefore revealing itself in a succession of
splendid metaphors. My curiosity was now in
a fair way of being satisfied; the spirit (demon
shall I not rather say?) of basheesh had entire
possession of me. The thrills which ran through my
nervous system became more rapid and fierce, ac
companied with sensations that steeped my whole
being in unutterable rapture. I was encom
passed by a sea of light, through which played
the pure harmonious colours that are born of
light. While endeavouring in broken expres.
sions to describe my feelings to my friends, who
sat looking upon me incredulously-not having
yet been affected by the drug-I suddenly
found myself at the foot of the great
pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of
yellow limestone gleamed like gold in the sun,
and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean
for support on the blue arch of the sky. I
wished to ascend it, and the wish alone placed
me immediately upon the apex. Lifted thou-
sands of feet above the wheat fields and palm
groves of Egypt, I cast my eyes downwards,
and, to my astonishment, saw that it was built,
not of limestone, but of huge square plugs of
Cavendish tobacco. The most remarkable fea-
ture of these illusions was, that at the time I
was most completely under their influence,
I knew myself to be seated in the tower of
Antonio's Hotel in Damascus; knew that I had
taken hasheesh, and that the strange, gorgeous,
and ludicrous fancies which possessed me, were
the effect of it."

On Easterns the effect of hasheesh is very different to that which it exercises on natives of other countries. A dose of a grain of the resin has been known to produce the full effect of the drug upon a Hindoo, while upon an Englishman or American ten times that quantity will often fail to produce any marked result. Upon Orientals, too, a great deal of its influence seems to be expended in causing animal excitement, while on the European, on the contrary, its action is almost entirely that of a mental stimulant. In India, moreover, a very small dose indeed has been known to produce catalepsy or trance, a condition of so rare occurrence, that its existence has been almost doubted. The following case, taken from Dr. O'Shaughnessy's pamphlet on Indian hemp, is quoted in Pereira's "Materia Medica:"-" At two p.m., a grain of the resin of hemp was given to a rheumatic patient. At four p. m., he was very talkative, sang, called loudly for an extra supply of food, and declared himself in perfect health. At six p.m., he was asleep. At eight p.m., he was found insensible,

but breathing with perfect regularity, his pulse and skin natural, and the pupils freely contractile on the approach of light. Happening by chance to lift up the patient's arm, the professional reader will judge of my astonishment," observes Dr. O'Shaughnessy, when I found that it remained in the posture in which I placed it. It required but a very brief examination of the limbs to find that the patient had, by the influence of this narcotic, been thrown into that strange and most extraordinary of all nervous conditions, into the state which so few have seen, and the existence of which so many still discredit, the genuine catalepsy of the nosologist. We raised him to a sitting posture, and placed his arms and limbs in every imaginable attitude. A waxen figure could not have been more pliant or more stationary in each position, no matter how contrary to the natural influence of gravity on the part. To all impressions he was, meanwhile, almost insensible.""

Many have been the tales told of the fakeers of India, of their marvellous powers of endurance, of existence through prolonged periods, when totally deprived of food, of tortures supported, and even of animation suspended.

One of these extraordinary men has been known to proffer a request that he might be interred alive, either with the intent of fulfilling a vow, or of procuring money. His wish has been acceded to, and with ears stopped with wax and wrapped in a winding-sheet, the votary of Brahma has been laid in the earth, and a watch set over him. The grass has grown over his grave ere he has been exhumed, yet very simple means of restoration have sufficed to enliven the glassy eye, and plump out the shrivelled body of the daring experimentalist, who has forthwith departed, as if nothing had happened.

This almost incredible feat is generally explained, by saying that the fakeer possesses the power of throwing himself, by a simple effort of will, into the trance state; an hypothesis too absurd to need any comment. To those familiar with the effects of Indian hemp, and especially with Dr. O'Shaughnessy's experiments, as above detailed, a much more rational explanation suggests itself; namely, that all these phenomena are attributable to a large dose of hasheesh.

Hasheesh has added a word to the English language. Mount Libanus, in Asia Minor, was once inhabited by a band of religious fanatics, whose practices somewhat resembled those of the Thugs of the present day. While under the influence of hasheesh, they were wont to sally forth on their murderous expeditions, and thus gained the name of hashashans, which has finally become corrupted into assassin.

Not totally uninteresting in a notice of Indian hemp, is its medicinal employment. Many cases of hydrophobia and lockjaw have yielded to its influence, when all other means have failed, and there is little doubt that when professional men have overcome, by more extended experiment, the almost universal prejudice against it, that it will become a valuable remedy in a class of maladies, the distressing nature of which is enhanced by the fact that medical science can do little more than alleviate the sufferings of their victims.

THE SAD RETURN.

FROM THE GERMAN OF EDUARD BRAUER.-BY JOHN OXENFORD.

LADY CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS

TO HER DAUGHTER.

COMPRISING THE OPINIONS OF THAT GENTLEWOMAN UPON
FASHION, MORALS, DEPORTMENT, EDUCATION, MATRI-
MONY, PHILOSOPHY, SHAKESPEARE, AND THE MUSICAL

GLASSES.

LETTER THE NINTH.

MISS CHESTERFIELD HAS BEEN TO PARIS.

life. Sure nothing could have been better managed; and the plot of your little drama of pleasure has been as skilfully constructed as successfully worked out. Mrs. De Fytchett had been deprived, through Mr. De Fytchett's gout, of her annual autumnal holiday-tour: say up the Rhine or to Hombourg-les-Bains, or to the Western Highlands or-sweet pilgrimage, endeared to me by ineffaceable memories of happy days!-to the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. She, weary of London, would have made a descent on Brighton or Scarborough, How infinitely kind of Lady Coseymore! How Harrogate or Ventnor, or the soft and emollient I love her for adding, as she has done, to the Torquay; nay, she might perchance have conhappiness and amusement of my beloved Louisa! descended to visit the crabbed passée old woman Not that Amelia-Charlotte De Fytchett should on her sofa at Pumpwell, at the fall of the year; be excluded from a share in my thanks. But but that dreadful influenza supervened, and, gratitude, my dear, like most impulsive quali- overwhelmed by floods of farinaceous food and ties, is partial and one-sided. I am afraid King sweet spirits of nitre, she was again compelled Charles the Second was in too great a hurry to abandon her trip. But Amelia-Charlotte, an to be grateful to General Monk, who had given energetic woman-some people, I am not among him back his crown, and too eager to reward the number, call her obstinate-was not to be him with the Dukedom of Albermarle, to have baulked of her plans of enjoyment. With the much leisure for even common gratitude to- New Year she put into execution a plan long wards the Pendrells who had saved him from conceived of taking the imperial city of Paris by the block when he was fain to abide in the oak, storm. She tore Mr. De Fytchett away from or towards the hundreds of gallant cavaliers his department at the Royal Rabbit Warren's who had perilled their lives and spent their office-it is true the Hereditary Grand Harefortunes in his cause. Let me take this fine skin seller, who looks in once a quarter to draw historic example, and, profiting by it, strive for his salary, told him that he was working himonce to be just as well as generous in my self to death (the Ostend correspondence is gratitude. Thank you Amelia-Charlotte. Kiss enormous) and that he ought positively to take her for me, darling, and tell her how fully I a month's extra leave. She reminded him of a appreciate her efforts to cast sunshine on your long-standing promise. She incited him to drive

I

to his bankers, Messrs. Doublon and Moydor, her lifetime as a reward for something that Fleet-street, and procure, through the inter- Coseymore did for his party. She prefers living mediary of that firm, the requisite Foreign in Paris on her ample jointure, to vegetating in Office passports; and in the bleakest, frigidest London. She sees everybody. Buonapartists, of December weather she carried him, per Dover Legitimists, Orleanists, Republicans, DiplomaMail train and packet steamer and Great North- tists, Yankees, Muscovites, and Mussulmen. I ern Railway of France, to that delightful capital believe that her maiden name was Maltworm, which these old eyes have not seen for twenty and that her grandfather brewed table ale on long years. Of course you were to go. Is there Bow Common. any rational pleasure on foot of which my Louisa One little thorn just seems to peer from your was not to partake? Frederica was to go and bouquet of Parisian roses-one little doubt perrenew her reminiscences of Madame de Ver- plexes me. Must it not have been by one of gennes Pensionnat de demoiselles, like Count the very oddest of coincidences that, at the very Rodolpho in the Somnambula. Pincott even moment that Paris trip was arranged, Ferdinand had a corner in a passport, and was to accom- de Fytchett should have obtained six weeks | pany the party with other female domesticities, leave of absence from his regiment, and that, of for we are a polite and genteel nation, and all people in the world, Mr. Reginald Tapeleigh, always travel with our ladies' maids, our medi- who had postponed his autumnal leave also, cine chests, and our neatly-bound Body of Con- should have elected to disport his elegant person troversial Theology. All was ready for the in Paris, and in the company of Ferdinand, of journey, when what did that dear kind thought- whom that amiable young gentleman is now a ful Lady Coseymore do, than write post haste to great crony. Three times over you tell me in say that during your sojourn in Paris she in- your last that Reginald is not wild, that he sisted on your sharing the hospitality of her never plays or stops out late like the dreadful splendid mansion in the Avenue Marigny. She guardsmen, and that you have never seen his was too old and affectionate a friend of your eyes inflamed or his face unseasonably pale. mamma, Lady Coseymore said, to be denied; only know that Ferdinand de Fytchett is very and while you stayed in Paris she would be much libelled if he be not one of the wildest proud to occupy, with Amelia-Charlotte, a joint young men extant-and he is not in the Guards guardianship over Sir Charles Chesterfield's either. I have heard, Miss, of his debts and his orphan. Need I say, that with my concur- doings at barracks; his debts and his dinners at rence, per electric telegraph-fancy saying Richmond and Greenwich; his cigars at three "certainly" by a flash of lightning-the generous guineas a pound, and his many tailors. In my offer was gratefully accepted, and that, while time a red coat was sufficient for a soldier; now the De Fytchetts occupied a sumptuous and our young officers seem to take every opportunity, costly suite of apartments at the Hotel du by their costume, of assuring the world that Louvre Mr. De F, is high up in the office, with- they are not in the least connected with the out his private means and A. C.'s pin money, army; whereas, by one of the curious contradicand can afford it-my darling was lodged at tions of human nature, the civilians take every my Lady Coseymore's snug and handsome possible pains to induce the belief that they are caravanserai in the Avenue Marigny, Champs military. Let Mr. Ferdinand de Fytchett take Elysées. The De Fytchetts, on their part, were care; else, will his Royal Highness commanding not sorry. My old acquaintance with the Cosey-in chief take away his commission, and his papa mores gave them, through you, a pied á terre in higher circles than, genteel as they are, they can aspire to in London; and so, a dream almost of the Arabian Nights has been realised, and my Louisa has spent a fortnight in Paris with the kindest hostess in the world-a superb old lady of the grand old school she should be by this time, and has mixed, moreover, with the very best society, both native and foreign, to be found in the gay and cosmopolitan metropolis of France. The daughter of a princess might be proud to be sheltered under the roof of such a lady as my old friend. Honoria Baroness Coseymore goes everywhere. She is a Peeress in her own right; witness her coronetted lozenges, and supporters, and motto "Il est mien." Her husband, General Baron Coseymore, G.C.B., died covered with wounds, British and foreign orders of knighthood, and cornplaisters. He was one of the bravest officers that fought in the Peninsular war under the immortal Wellington, and was a martyr to bunions. He was immensely rich, mainly, it was whispered, through despoils of Spanish convents, was a great musical amateur and patron of art, and was one of the rudest and coarsest old men I ever met with. His peerage is extinct, and the Baroness got the creation in

cut him off with a shilling. After all, I believe | Ferdinand is a good lad, but he is wild; and if your admired Mr. Reginald Tapeleigh be truly as you maintain, as decorous as Telemachus, Mr. Ferdinand is, at the least, a very dangerous Mentor for that well-behaved youth. The young men, you say, did not stay at the Hotel du Louvre. They declared it to be dear and uncomfortable, and "hung out"-to use their unpolished language-how rude and overbearing the young men of the present day are! at an Hotel called Lille et Albion, in the Rue St. Honoré. The last time I was in Paris with Sir Charles, A.D. 1839, we stopped at Meurices. Everybody stopped at Meurices then, or else at the Windsor, or the Wagram. Those Hotels have gone out of fashion now, I suppose, like your mamma. I hope the De Fytchetts found their suite of rooms au premier for which, you inform me, they paid forty francs a day, without candles or firing-large enough.

Did you find Paris much changed? Bah! I am talking to a little girl. You had never been there before. Frederica, you say, found it much altered. I daresay she did; from the time when she and Madame de Vergenne's pupils walked two and two in the Champs Elysées, and were