38 THE LAST DAY AT CIIEE-HA. 



composure, and immediately set myself to write 

 down before it faded away irrecoverably from my 

 memory the strange medley, of the real and the 

 unreal, of fact and fiction, of logical deduction 

 and palpable inconsequence, which is here pre- 

 sented you ; and which resulted from that condition 

 of the brain to which disease and the doctor had 

 jointly contributed. 



"These are the * insomnia segri' of which the 

 Latin poet speaks. I have given you a life-like 

 picture." 



" Humph !" said the lawyer, with a yawn, " I am 

 sleepy !" 



" And now that you provoke me to it, I will say 

 an original" 



" An ' extravaganza,' I grant." 



"Yes, after Fuseli." 



But what has become of our missing hounds all 

 the while ? We have run off, as they have done ; 

 and must now recover the track of our narrative. 

 The night passed, and nothing was heard of them ; 

 the next day, and they did not come ; on the second 

 day, a mounted huntsman was sent across the river, 

 to search for them on the opposite side. "We have 

 seen, that starting from the Ashepoo, they had 

 crossed the Chee-ha ; taking up the search at this 

 point, he traced them from plantation to plantation, 



