And catch the music flowing from their tongues.”
In Asia Minor an extract from the Indian hemp has been from time immemorial swallowed with the greatest avidity, as the means of producing the most ecstatic delight, and affording a gratification even of a higher character than that which is known there to follow on the use of opium. A small dose seems only to influence the moral faculties, giving to the intellectual powers greater vivacity, and momentary vigour. A larger dose seems to awaken a new sensibility, and call into action dormant capabilities of enjoyment. Not only is the imagination excited, but an intensity of energy pervades all the passions and affections of the mind. Memory not only recurs with facility to the past, but incorporates delusions with it, for with whatever accuracy the facts may be remembered, they are painted with glowing colours, and made sources of pleasure. The senses become instruments also of deception, the eye and the ear, not only are alive to every impression, but they delude the reason, and disturb the brain, by the delusions to which they become subject. Gaiety, or a soothing melancholy, may be produced, as pleasant or disagreeable sights or sounds are presented.
So much alive are the swallowers of haschisch to the effect of external objects upon the perceptive powers, that they generally retire to the depths of the harem, where the almas, or females educated for this purpose, add, by the charms of music and the dance, to the false perceptions which the disordered condition of the brain gives rise to. Insensibly the reason and the volition are entirely overcome, and yield themselves up to the fantastic imagery which affords such delight. Can we wonder at such people producing and admiring all the extravagancies of the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments?” Can we be surprised at their belief in a paradise for the future, which is at best but a voluptuary’s dream?
At the commencement of the intoxication produced by the hemp, there is the most perfect consciousness of the state of the disordered faculties. There exists the power of analyzing the sensations, but the mind seems unwilling to resume its guiding and controlling power. It is conscious that all is but a dream, and yet feels a delight in perfect abandonment to the false enjoyment. It will not attempt to awaken from the reverie, but rather to indulge in it, to the utmost extent of which it is capable. There seems an ideal existence, but it is too pleasurable to shake off—it penetrates into the inmost recesses of the body—it envelopes it. The dreams and phantoms of the imagination appear part of the living being; and yet, during all this, there remains the internal conviction that the real world is abandoned, for a fictitious and imaginative existence, which has charms too delightful to resist. To the extreme rapidity with which ideas, sensations, desires, rush across the brain, may be attributed the singular retardation of time, which appears to be lengthened out to eternity. Similar effects, proceeding, doubtless, from the same or similar causes, are noticed in the “Confessions of an Opium-Eater,” wherein he speaks of minutes becoming as ages.
Dr. Moreau gives singular illustrations of this peculiar state. On one occasion he took a dose of the haschisch previously to his going to the opera, and he fancied that he was upwards of three hours finding his way through the passage leading to it. M. de Saulcy partook of a dose of haschisch, and when he recovered, it appeared to him that he had been under its influence for a hundred years at least.
Whilst an indescribable sensation of happiness takes possession of the individual, and the joy and exultation are felt to be almost too much to be borne, the mind seems totally at a loss to account for it, or to explain from what particular source it springs. There is a positive sensation of universal contentment, but it is vain to attempt to explain the nature of the enjoyment. The peculiar motion appears to be wholly inexplicable. A sense of something unusual pervades every fibre, but all attempts to analyze or describe it are declared to be in vain. After a certain period of time the system appears to be no longer capable of further happiness, the sensibility seems thoroughly exhausted, a gentle sense of lassitude, physical and moral, gradually succeeds—an apathy, a carelessness, an absolute calm, from which no exterior object can arouse the torpid frame. These are the great characteristics of this stage. The most alarming or afflicting intelligence is listened to without exciting any emotion. The mind is thoroughly absorbed, the perception seems blunted, the senses scarcely convey any impression to the brain. A re-action has taken place, yet the collapse is unattended with any disagreeable feeling. The energies are all prostrate, yet there are none of those depressing symptoms which attend the last stages of ordinary intoxication. All that is described is an ineffable tranquillity of soul, during which it is perfectly inaccessible to sorrow or pain. “The haschisch eater is happy,” continues Dr. Moreau, “not like the gourmand, or the famished man when satisfying his appetite, or the voluptuary in the gratification of his amative desires; but like him who hears tidings which fill him with joy, or like the miser counting his treasures, the gambler who is successful at play, or the ambitious man who is intoxicated with success.”
All those who have tried the experiment do not speak in such glowing terms of the results. M. de Saulcey, who tried it at Jerusalem, says:——“The experiment, to which we had recourse for passing our time, turned out so utterly disagreeable that I may safely say, not one of us will ever be tempted to try it again. The haschisch is an abominable poison which the dregs of the population alone drink and smoke in the East, and which we were silly enough to take, in too large a dose, on the eve of New Year’s-day. We fancied we were going to have an evening of enjoyment, but we nearly died through our imprudence. As I had taken a larger dose of this pernicious drug than my companions, I remained almost insensible for more than twenty-four hours, after which I found myself completely broken down with nervous spasms, and incoherent dreams.”
It is not uncommon for illusions and hallucinations to occur during the early stage, when the senses have lost their power of communicating faithfully to the brain the impressions they receive.
Dr. Auber, in his work on the plague, narrates various instances of delusions occurring in the course of his administering hemp preparations as a relief in that disease. An officer in the navy saw puppets dancing on the roof of his cabin—another believed that he was transformed into the piston of a steam-engine—a young artist imagined that his body was endowed with such elasticity as to enable him to enter into a bottle, and remain there at his ease. Other writers speak of individuals similarly affected: one of a man who believed himself changed entirely into brittle glass, and in constant fear of being cracked or broken, or having a finger or toe knocked off; another, of a youth who believed himself growing and expanding to such an extent, that he deemed it inevitable that the room in which he was would be too small to contain him, and that he must, during the expansion, force up the ceiling into the room above. Dr. Moreau, on one occasion, believed that he was melting away by the heat of the sun, at another, that his whole body was inflated like a balloon, that he was enabled to elevate himself, and vanish in the air. The ideas that generally presented themselves to him of these illusions were, that objects wore the semblance of phantasmagoric figures, small at first, then gradually enlarging, then suddenly becoming enormous and vanishing. Sometimes these figures were subjects of alarm to him. A little hideous dwarf, clothed in the dress of the thirteenth century, haunted him for some time. Aware of the delusion, he entreated that the object which kept up the illusion should be removed—these were a hat and a coat upon a neighbouring table. An old servant of seventy-one, was, upon another occasion, represented by his eye to the brain as a young lady, adorned with all the grace of beauty, and his white hair and wrinkles transformed into irresistible attractions. A friend who presented him with a glass of lemonade was pictured to his disordered imagination as a furnace of hot charcoal. Sometimes the happiness was interrupted by delusions that affrighted him. Thus, having indulged himself with his accustomed dose, every object awoke his terror and alarm, which neither the conviction of his own mind nor the soothing explanations of his friends could diminish, and he was for a considerable length of time under the most fearful impressions.
“Through the darkness spread