Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which
Hung upon his flight.”
These are the immediate effects produced by this most extraordinary substance. There are others, however, still more singular, which have attracted the attention of travellers, and become the objects of intense curiosity. These are of a nature unknown in connection with any other substance, and have formed the basis of numerous marvellous narrations, that have astonished even the incredulous. Those who have seen the fearful symptoms betrayed during delirium tremens, and have heard the sufferers declare that they saw before them genii, fairies, devils, know how the senses may become the source of delusion, and hence may judge to what a disordered state of the intellect may lead. When the brain has once become disordered by the use of the narcotic hemp, it becomes ever afterwards liable to hallucinations and delusions, unlike those produced by anything else, save intoxicating liquours after an attack of delirium tremens. The mind then believes that it sees visions, and beholds beings with whom it can converse. The phenomena gradually develop themselves, until illusions take the place of realities, and hold firm possession of the mind, which would seem on all other points to be healthy and vigorous, but on this point, insane. So firm and so fixed becomes the belief, that neither argument convinces, nor ridicule shakes, the individual from his faith, in which a prejudiced or too credulous nature confirms him but the more.
The Arabs, especially those of Egypt, are exceedingly superstitious, and there is scarce a person, even among the better informed, who does not believe in the existence of genii. According to their belief there are three species of intelligent beings, namely, angels, who were created of light, genii, who were created of fire, and men, created of earth. The prevailing opinion is that Sheytans (devils) are rebellious genii. It is said that God created the genii two thousand years before Adam, and that there are believers and infidels among them as among men. It is held that they are aerial animals with transparent bodies, which can assume any form. That they are subject to death, but live many ages. The following are traditions of the Prophet concerning them. The genii are of various shapes, having the forms of serpents, scorpions, lions, wolves, jackals, &c. They are of three kinds, one on the land, one in the sea, one in the air. They consist of forty troops, each troop consisting of six hundred thousand. They are of three sorts, one has wings and fly; another, are snakes and dogs; and the third move about from place to place like men. Domestic snakes on the same authority, are asserted to be genii. If serpents or scorpions intrude themselves upon the faithful at prayers, the Prophet orders that they be killed, but on other occasions, first to admonish them to depart, and then if they remained to kill them. It is related that Aisheeh, the prophet’s wife, having killed a serpent in her chamber, was alarmed by a dream, and fearing that it might have been a Muslim Jinnee, as it did not enter her chamber when she was undressed, gave in alms, as an expiation, about three hundred pounds, the price of the blood of a Muslim. The genii appear to mankind most commonly in the shapes of serpents, dogs, cats, or human beings. In the last case, they are sometimes of the stature of men, and sometimes of a size enormously gigantic. If good, they are generally resplendently handsome, if evil, horribly hideous. They become invisible at pleasure (by a rapid extension or rarefaction of the particles which compose them) or suddenly disappear in the earth or air, or through a solid wall.
The Sheykh Khaleel El Medabighee related the following anecdote of a Jinnee. He had, he said, a favourite black cat, which always slept at the foot of his musquito curtain. Once, at midnight, he heard a knocking at the door of his house, and his cat went and opened the hanging shutter of the window, and called, “Who is there?” A voice replied, “I am such a one,” (mentioning a strange name) “the jinnee, open the door.” “The lock,” said the Sheykh’s cat, “has had the name pronounced upon it.” It is the custom to say, “In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful,” on locking the door, covering bread, laying down their clothes at night, and on other occasions, and this they believe protects their property from genii. “Then throw me down,” said the voice, “two cakes of bread.” “The bread-basket,” answered the cat at the window, “has had the name pronounced upon it.” “Well,” said the stranger, “at least give me a draught of water.” But he was answered that the water-jar had been secured in the same manner, and asked what he was to do, seeing that he was likely to die of hunger and thirst. The Sheykh’s cat told him to go to the door of the next house, and went there also himself, and opened the door, and soon after returned. Next morning the Sheykh deviated from a habit which he had constantly observed; he gave to the cat half of the fateereh upon which he breakfasted instead of a little morsel which he was wont to give, and afterwards said, “O my cat, thou knowest that I am a poor man; bring me then a little gold,” upon which words the cat immediately disappeared, and he saw it no more. Such are the stories which they believe and narrate of these genii; and there is scarce an indulger in haschisch whose imagination does not lead him to believe that he has seen or had communication with some of these beings.
Mr. Lane, translator of the “Arabian Nights,” had once a humourous cook addicted to the intoxicating haschisch, of whom he relates the following circumstance:——“Soon after he had entered my service, I heard him, one evening, muttering, and exclaiming on the stairs as if surprised at some event, and then politely saying, ‘But why are you sitting here in the draught? Do me the favour to come up into the kitchen, and amuse me with your conversation a little!’ The civil address not being answered, was repeated, and varied several times, till I called out to the man, and asked him to whom he was speaking. ‘The efreet of a Turkish soldier,’ he replied, ‘is sitting on the stairs, smoking his pipe, and refuses to move; he came up from the well below; pray step and see him.’ On my going to the stairs, and telling the servant that I could see nothing, he only remarked that it was because I had a clear conscience. My cook professed to see this efreet frequently after.”
Dr. Moreau enumerates many instances, from his own immediate followers, of genii seers among the haschisch eaters. His dragoman, who had been attached in that capacity to Champollion, the captain of the vessel, and several sailors, had not only a firm belief in, but had actually received visits from genii or efreets, and neither argument nor ridicule could shake their conviction. The captain had, on two occasions, seen a jinnee, he appeared to him under the form of a sheep. On returning one evening somewhat late to his house, the captain found a stray sheep bleating with unusual noise. He took him home, sheared him for his long fleece, and was about to kill him, when suddenly the sheep rose up to the height of twenty feet, in the form of a black man, and in a voice of thunder, announced himself as a jinnee.
One of the sailors, Mansour, a man who had made nearly twenty voyages with Europeans, recounted his interview with a genius under the guise of a young girl of eight or ten years of age. He met her in the evening on the banks of the Nile, weeping deplorably because she had lost her way. Mansour, touched with compassion, took her home with him. In the morning he mounted her on an ass, to take her to her parents. On entering a grove of palms, he heard behind him some fearful sighs; on looking round to ascertain the cause, he saw, to his horror, that the little girl had dismounted, that her lower extremities had become of an enormous length, resembling two frightful serpents, which she trailed after her in the sand. Her arms became lengthened out, her face mounted up into the skies, black as charcoal, her immense mouth, armed with crocodile’s teeth, vomited forth flame. Poor Mansour fell suddenly upon the earth, where, overcome with terror, he passed the night. In the morning he crawled home, and two months of illness attested the fact of disorder of the brain.
Many such tales are recounted, and all told by the sufferers with the firmest belief, and the most earnest conviction of their truth; each, by his own delusion, strengthening and confirming others. All those who had seen visions had their minds diseased through the use of haschisch, while those who did not indulge in the habit were free from these extraordinary illusions. These hallucinations seem to be manifested independently of any then existing affection of the brain, and the individual appears, under other circumstances, fitted for the usual avocations of life. They may be only symptoms of a previously disordered intellect, but they may also be the starting point, from which insanity is developed. In all instances in which these hallucinations occur, watchfulness is necessary, since, in the majority of cases they terminate finally in derangement of the brain to the extent generally denominated madness.