EFFECTS OF OPIUM. 385 



cayed, pointed, and black-stained fangs. As I approached 

 him he raised his body from the mat on which he was 

 reposing, and filling an antiquated pipe with tobacco, 

 courteously presented it for my acceptance. There was 

 something interesting, and, at the same time, melancholy, 

 in the physique of this old man, who, now in rags, ap- 

 peared from the silver ornaments he wore, and by his 

 embroidered jacket, to have been formerly a person of 

 some consideration ; but the fascinating influence of the 

 deadly drug had fastened on him, and a pallet in a Cara- 

 vansary was the reward of self-indulgence. In my expe- 

 rience of Opium, which has not, however, been very 

 extensive, I cannot say I found as much pleasure as 

 De Quincy, the " English Opium Eater," in his ' Con- 

 fessions,' would lead us to believe fell to his lot. After 

 three or four Chinese Opium-pipes, I found my brain 

 very much unsettled, and teeming with thoughts, ill- 

 arranged, and pursuing each other in wanton dreamy 

 play, without order or connexion ; the circulating system 

 being, at the same time, much excited, the frame tremu- 

 lous, the eye-balls fixed, and a peculiar and agreeable 

 thrilling sensation extending along the nerves. The same 

 succession of image crowding upon image, and thoughts 

 revelling in strange disorder, continues for some time, 

 during which a person appears to be in the condition of 

 the madman alluded to by Dryden, in his play of the 

 ' Spanish Friar :' 



" He raves, his words are loose 

 As heaps of sand, and scattering wide from sense : 

 So high he's mounted on his airy throne, 

 That now the wind has got into his head, 

 And turned his brains to frenzy." 



VOL. II. 2 C 



