The incautious use of hemp is also noticed as leading to, or ending in, insanity, especially among young persons, who try it for the first time. This state may be recognised by the strange balancing gait of the victim, a constant rubbing of the hands, perpetual giggling, and a propensity to caress and chafe the feet of all bystanders, of whatever rank. The eye wears an expression of cunning and merriment which can scarcely be mistaken. In a few cases, the patients are violent—in all, voraciously hungry.
Under the influence of this drug, its devotees exhibited, doubtless, to the astonished gaze of the early travellers from this, and other northern countries, strange freaks and antics, which filled them with wonder, and sent them home brim-full of wonderful legends and marvellous stories gathered from the lips of the votaries of Hemp. The ready and active brain of the oriental—always associating places and people, actions and accidents, men and manners, with the unseen agency of ghosts and genii—under the influence of haschisch, gave full scope to their imaginations, letting loose upon the traveller a torrent of romance, and peopling every corner of his route with legions of spirits, set him wondering to himself whether he had really escaped from the common-place world of his nativity into another sphere specially devoted to the occupation of etherial beings. Now listening to the narrative of a reputed communicant with spirits, he hears of the concentrated genii, confined in the narrow form of a little dog, or smaller still, in a little fish, gradually expanding, and towering higher and higher, till his head reached to the clouds, and then with a voice of thunder communicating his message to the terrified and superstitious Arab crouching at his feet. Anon, he hears of the plague, and his credulous dragoman informs him that once upon a time a pious Moslem was worshipping at sunrise, when he saw a hideous phantom approaching him, and the following conversation passed between them.
“Who art thou?”
“The Plague.”
“Whither goest thou?”
“To Cairo.”
“Wherefore?”
“To kill ten thousand.”
“Go not.”
“It is destined that I should.”