44 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



knowledge of where I was, and what I was about 

 even with such caution as was required to place my 

 feet on particular places in the snow I conjured up 

 such a set of absurd and improbable phantoms about 

 me, that the most spirit-ridden intruder upon a May- 

 day festival on the Hartz mountains was never more 

 beleaguered. I am not sufficiently versed in the finer 

 theories of the psychology of sleep to know if such a 

 state might be ; but I believe for the greater part of 

 this bewildering period I was fast asleep, with my 

 eyes open, and through them the wandering brain re- 

 ceived external impressions : in the same manner as, 

 upon waking, the phantasms of our dreams are some- 

 times carried on, and connected with objects about 

 the chamber. It is very difficult to explain the odd 

 state in which I was, so to speak, entangled, A great 

 many people I knew in London were accompanying 

 me, and calling after me, as the stones did after 

 Prince Perviz in the ' Arabian Nights.' Then there 

 was some terribly elaborate affair that I could not 

 settle, about two bedsteads, the whole blame of which 

 transaction, whatever it was, lay on my shoulders ; 

 and then a literary friend came up, and told me he 

 was sorry we could not pass over his ground on our 

 way to the summit, but that the King of Prussia had 

 forbidden it. Everything was as foolish and uncon- 

 nected as this, but it worried me painfully ; and my 

 senses were under such little control, and I reeled 

 and staggered about so, that when we had crossed the 



