way, she delivered her fateful tidings. Lydia returned home with her sack of flour the same day, and the baffled British never could imagine to whom they owed this unfathomable treachery.

may be imagined with what anxious expectation the heroines awaited the approach of the critical moment on which so much depended. The forest solitude around them, the silence of night, and the The following is an anecdote of the wife of darkness, must have added to the terrors conjured Colonel Thomas:-"Early in the war, Governor up by busy fancy. Presently the courier appeared, Rutledge sent a quantity of arms and ammunition with his attendant guards. As they came close to the house of Colonel Thomas, to be in readiness to the spot, the disguised women leapt from their for any emergency that might rise on the frontier. covert in the bushes, presented their pistols at the These munitions were under a guard of twenty-officers, and demanded the instant surrender of the five men, and the house was prepared to resist party and their despatches. The men were comassault. Colonel Thomas received information pletely taken by surprise, and in their alarm at the that a large party of tories, under the command of sudden attack, yielded a prompt submission. The Colonel More of North Carolina, was advancing to seeming soldiers put them on their parole, and attack him. He and his guard deemed it inexpe- having taken possession of the papers, hastened dient to risk an encounter with a force so much home by a short cut through the woods." It superior to their own, and they therefore retired, happened curiously that the officers, returning on carrying off as much ammunition as possible. Jo- parole, claimed the hospitality of these very ladies, siah Culbertson, a son-in-law of Colonel Thomas, and related their mishap to them, without having who was with the little garrison, would not go the slightest suspicion of the identity of their conwith the others, but remained in the house. Be- querors and entertainers. sides him and a youth, the only inmates were women. The tories advanced and took up their station; but the treasure was not to be yielded to their demand. Their call for admittance was answered by an order to leave the premises, and their fire was received without much injury by the logs of the house. The fire was quickly returned from the upper story, and proved much more effectual than that of the assailants. The old-fashioned 'batten door,' strongly barricaded, resisted their efforts to demolish it. Meanwhile Culbertson continued to fire, the guns being loaded as fast as he discharged them, by the ready hands of Mrs. Thomas and her daughters, aided by her son William; and this spirited resistance soon convinced the enemy that further effort was useless Believing that many men were concealed in the house, and apprehending a sally, their retreat was made as rapidly as their wounds would permit. After waiting a prudent time, and reconnoitring as well as she could from her position above, Mrs. Thomas descended the stairs, and opened the doors. When her husband made his appearance, and knew how gallantly the plunderers had been repulsed, his joy was only equalled by admiration of his wife's heroism. The powder thus preserved constituted the principal supply for Sumter's army in the battles at Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock." A still more daring exploit is related of two ladies of the name of Martin, wives of two brothers in Ninety-six District :-"One evening intelligence came to them that a courier, conveying important dispatches to one of the upper stations, was to pass that night along the road, guarded by two British officers. They determined to waylay the party, and at the risk of their lives to obtain possession of the papers. For this purpose the two young women disguised themselves in their husbands' clothes, and being well provided with arms, took their station at a point on the road which they knew the escort must pass. It was already late, and they had not waited long before the tramp of horses was heard in the distance. It!

Perhaps, however, the crowning instance of female heroism is the following:-At the siege of Bryant's station near Lexington, a large body of Indians were known to the beleagured garrison to be lying in ambush near the spring where they drew water. On the other side of the fort there was a party in full view, who, at a given time, were to open fire, and while the garrison were occupied in returning this, and perhaps making a sally, the ambuscade was to unmask themselves, and make an attack on the undefended quarter. Such being the plans of the enemy, how was the garrison to obtain water? If men went for it, the ambuscade would in all probability fire; and when they fled from an overpowering force, endeavor to enter the fort with the fugitives. If the women went for the water-as the women usually did was there not a chance that the Indians would suppose their ambuscade to be undiscovered, and allow them to return unharmed? On this chance the women went. "A few of the boldest declared their readiness to brave the danger, and the younger and more timid rallying in the rear of these veterans, they all marched down in a body to the spring, within point blank shot of more than five hundred Indian warriors! Some of the girls could not help betraying symptoms of terror; but the married women, in general, moved with a steadiness and composure that completely deceived the Indians. Not a shot was fired. The party were permitted to fill their buckets, one after another, without interruption; and although their steps became quicker and quicker on their return, and when near the fort degenerated into a rather unmilitary celerity, with some little crowding in passing the gate, yet not more than one fifth of the water was spilled, and the eyes of the youngest had not dilated to more than double their ordi

nary

size."*

If we had room, we should enter into some details of a curious story related by our author of a

* M'Clung's Sketches of Western Adventure.

um."

From Chambers' Journal.
THE HASHISH.

tion to it, but rather as a matter of curiosity, than with a view eithe of trying it themselves, or learning what was the experience of others. The French savans who accompanied Napoleon paid more attention to the matter. M. Virey, in a memoir published as far back as 1803, in one of

AMONGST several subjects of scientific inquiry in France, placed for the mean time in abeyance by the revolution of February, one of the most remarkable was the peculiar influence of certain drugs upon the human mind, and the alterations the scientific periodicals, gave a medical view of which they produce upon the perceptive powers, it, and attempted to prove that it was the Nephenthe imagination, and the reason. The attention of thes of Homer. Sylvestre de Lacy has taken a the French public was brought to this consideration vast deal of pains to learn the ancient history by Dr. Moreau, physician to the hospital of the that is to be gleaned relative to it, and has demonBicêtre, in Paris, who, in the year 1841, published strated that the word assassin is derived from the a short memoir upon the treatment of "Halluci- word haschichin, which was given to the Ishmaelnations by the Thorn-apple, or Datura stramoni-ites who committed murder under its influence. Whilst discussing the nature of eccentrici- He produces several Arabic texts, which bear out ties, of fantasias, and illusions, he was led to his interpretation, and then quotes the authority describe the singular power of a drug, the produce of Marco Polo, who tells us that the Old Man of of the Indian hemp, called Hashish, of awakening the Mountains, so mysteriously known by our forein the mind a train of phenomena of the most fathers, educated young men, the most robust of extraordinary character, entrancing the senses in his tribe, to execute his barbarous decrees. To delicious reveries, and modifying the organic sen- those who delivered themselves up entirely to his sibility. So invitingly did he paint the nature of will he promised future rewards of eternal happithe new impressions which arose from its use, ness, of which he gave them a foretaste by placing that in a short time all the physicians and medi- them in delicious gardens, adorned with all that Asical students were indulging in doses of this new atic luxury could imagine of rich and brilliant, and addition to the charms of life. From them it where every sensual gratification was at command. rapidly spread to the poets, the idealists, and all The young men, after having swallowed a certain the lovers of novelty. Each had a different tale beverage, were placed in temples within the garto recount. Some saw phantasmagoric figures dens; and there, while under the influence of dancing more exquisitely than Taglioni; others intoxication, indulged to the utmost in their deheard sounds of music vibrating on their ears more impressive than Jenny Lind can produce; some the simple vibrations of a few chords of the harp plunged into the sweetest melancholy; others felt a happiness such as language failed to describe —an exaltation of feeling, which raised them to joys far beyond what this sublunary world can offer. The opium-eater, and the devotee to the wine-bottle, declared that their favorite means of enjoyment possessed little power in comparison to the hashish.

grading passions, till such was their rapture, that at a word they would throw themselves from the summit of a tower, rush through flames, or strike a poniard in the heart of their dearest friend.

66

Of those who have experienced the effects of the hashish in France, some have described their sensations in print. Amongst these is Theodore Gautier, one of the most distinguished writers of the day. He has, in the newspaper edited by Emile de Gerardin, "La Presse," given the following testimony of its singular influence :-"The In the year 1845, Dr. Moreau gave to the world Orientalists," says he, have, in consequence of a work entitled "Du Hashish et de l'Aliénation the interdiction of wine, sought that species of Mantale Etudes Psychologiques," in which we excitement which the western nations derive from are furnished with the results of his experience alcoholic drinks. The love of the ideal is so dear upon himself, upon his friends, and upon patients to man, that he attempts, as far as he can, to resuffering under mental alienation. Since that lax the ties which bind the body to the soul; and period the drug has been subjected to various as the means of being in an ecstatic state are not analyses, and the plant has been reared in France in the power of all, one person drinks for gayety, and in Algiers with a view of ascertaining its another smokes for forgetfulness, a third devours botanical character; but the ill effects that have momentary madness-one under the form of wine, followed upon its long-continued use, the uncer- the others under that of tobacco and hashish." tainty of the result that succeeds its employment, He then proceeds to say, that a few minutes after and the usual fate that attends upon the production swallowing some of the preparation, a sudden of a novelty that every one at first talks about, overwhelming sensation took possession of him. together with the late all-engrossing changes, have It appeared to him that his body was dissolved, led to the abandonment of further trials. Still, the subject is worthy of attention, and we trust that its entire character will ultimately be ascertained.

that he had become transparent. He clearly saw in his chest the hashish which he had swallowed, under the form of an emerald, from which a thousand little sparks issued. His eyelashes were The Cannabis Indica, or hashish, has long been lengthened out indefinitely, and rolled like threads known in the Levant, as producing what is there of gold around ivory balls, which turned with an called a fantasia. Our English travellers in inconceivable rapidity. Around him were sparkEgypt, especially Lane, have devoted some atten-lings of precious stones of all colors, changes

He

eternally produced, like the play of the kaleido- | which soon ceased. He was calm again until the scope. He every now and then saw his friends dessert was placed on the table, when he suddenly who were round him disfigured-half-men half-seized a large spoon, to defend himself against a plants, some with the wings of the ostrich, which preserve of fruits, which he fancied was going tc they were constantly shaking. So strange were fight a duel with him, and then, with a shout of these, that he burst into fits of laughter; and to laughter, he rushed from the dining-room. join in the apparent ridiculousness of the affair, he seated himself in the saloon, at the pianoforte, and began throwing the cushions in the air, catching commenced an air, which was suddenly put a and turning them with the rapidity of an Indian stop to by a horrible vision. The portrait of his juggler. One gentleman spoke to him in Italian, brother, which hung over the instrument, became which the hashish transposed into Spanish. After animated, and presented him a three-pronged staff, terminated by three lanterns-one red, one green, and one white. This apparition returned frequent

a few minutes he recovered his habitual calmness, without any bad effect, without headache, and only astonished at what had passed. Half an hourly in the course of the evening. Whilst seated had scarcely elapsed before he fell again under on the sofa, he exclaimed suddenly, “Why bind the influence of the drug. On this occasion the my limbs ? I feel that I become lead! Oh, vision was more complicated and more extraor- how heavy I am!" He was taken by the hands dinary. In the air there were millions of butter- to lift him, when he fell upon the ground upon flies, confusedly luminous, shaking their wings his knees, as if about to pray. Being lifted up, like fans. Gigantic flowers with chalices of crys- a sudden change came over him. He took the tal, large peonies upon beds of gold and silver, shovel from the fireplace to dance the polka; he rose and surrounded him with the crackling sound imitated the voice and the gestures of the actors that accompanies the explosion in the air of he had lately seen. He fancied himself at the fireworks. His hearing acquired new power: opera; the people, the noise, the lights, elevated it was enormously developed. He heard the his spirits to their highest pitch. He gesticulated, noise of colors. Green, red, blue, yellow sounds made a thousand incoherent speeches, and rushed reached him in waves. A glass thrown down, into the next room, which was not lighted up. the creaking of a sofa, a word pronounced low, Something frightful then came over him he fell vibrated and rolled within him like peals of thun- into an immense well; it was unfathomable; he der. His own voice sounded so loud that he tried to lay hold of the stones that projected on feared to speak, lest he should knock down the the sides of the well, but they fell with him into walls, or explode like a rocket. More than five the abyss. The sensation was painful, but of hundred clocks struck the hour with fleeting, short duration, and again the scene of the opera silvery voice; and every object touched gave a appeared. He spoke of persons whom he had note like the harmonica or the Æolian harp. He not seen for years; spoke of a dinner at which he swam in an ocean of sound, where floated, like had been present five years before, although he isles of light, some of the airs of "Lucia di Lam- was conscious that he was at home, and that all mermuir," and the "Barber of Seville." Never he then saw had passed a long time before, yet did similar bliss overwhelm him with its waves: he saw before him two persons whom he had then he was lost in a wilderness of sweets; he was not met. But a bliss that could not be described was himself; he was relieved from consciousness, that the sight of an infant in a sky of blue and silver, feeling which always pervades the mind; and for with white wings bordered by roses he smiled, the first time he comprehended what might be the and showed two beautiful teeth. He was surstate of existence of elementary beings, of angels, rounded by children with wings, and flying in a of souls separated from the body all his system blue sky, but they were not equally lovely. seemed infected with the fantastic coloring in These all rapidly vanished, after being a source which he was plunged. Sounds, perfume, light, of infinite delight; and suddenly the hashish reached him only by minute rays, in the midst called up the land of lanterns. There were peoof which he heard magnetic currents whistling ple, houses, trees, formed of lanterns, in parallel along. According to his calculation, this state rows; these lanterns, marched, danced, and jumped lasted about three hundred years; for the sensa- about; in the midst of them appeared the three tions were so numerous and so hurried, one upon lanterns which belonged to his brother's fork. the other, that a real appreciation of time was One brilliant light, seemed superior to all; this impossible. The paroxysm over, he was aware was evidently produced by a piece of coal in the that it had only lasted a quarter of an hour. fireplace, for when it was extinguished, the light disappeared with it. On drinking a glass of lemonade, the baths of the Seine rose up in view, where with difficulty he was saved from drowning. A thousand fantastic visions floated across the mind during the three hours of its influence, and there was a mixture of sensations such as only

A case, taken down in notes immediately after its occurrence, may be relied on as perfectly authentic, and as giving a notion of the varied nature of the influence of hashish. The individual, aware of its effects, not by experience, but by what he had heard, having swallowed some of the drug, sat down to the dinner-table; and beginning the din-are felt in a dream. ner in a true French style, ate some oysters, and Scarcely two people feel the same effects from then suddenly burst into a loud fit of laughter, hashish. Upon some it scarcely acts at all; and

Some

there appears to be a power to resist within, which stasy, a state of exaltation produced, that defies can at pleasure be called into force. It generally all explanation. The sight is seldom so much has a striking action upon females, sometimes affected; there is rarely anything in the shape of producing a most extraordinary state of excite- a vision conjured up, but objects that are present ment; but there seems to be no indication by are conveyed to the brain in a false view. which the intensity of its power can be antici- times the face of a friend is multiplied, or an pated. There is something very analogous to the object of no striking character is converted into a state of dreaming throughout the whole progress beautiful figure-is metamorphosed in a thousand of a paroxysm caused by it. A train of appa- different forms: thus an old servant of seventy-one rently unconnected ideas rush across the imagina- years of age, in spite of his wrinkles and gray tion, and in their transition are so rapid, that no hair, appeared before Dr. Moreau in the form of chain that links them can be seized by investi-a lovely girl adorned with a thousand graces; a gation.

glass of lemonade in the hands of a friend became The ordinary physical effects of hashish are the a utensil full of burning charcoal; a hat and a feeling of a slight compression of the temporal coat placed upon a table were transformed into a bones and the upper parts of the head. The rickety little dwarf, having the characteristic aprespiration is gentle; the pulse is slightly acceler-pearance of one of those hideous persons formerly ated; a gentle heat, such as is felt on going in employed to amuse the great, but not possessing winter into a warm bath of a temperature of about the symmetry either of Sir Jeffry Hudson or our 98 degrees, is felt all over the surface of the body; inimitable Tom Thumb: the touch is occasionally there is some sense of weight about the fore part modified, sometimes being endowed with a high of the arms, and there is an occasional slight degree of sensibility. The most singular halluciinvoluntary motion, as if to seek relief from it. nations were those produced by the hashish in There are certain indefinable sensations of dis- some cases of plague, in which it was employed comfort about the lower extremities; they do not to alleviate suffering by Dr. Auber: a young amount to much, but are sufficient to render the artist imagined his body endowed with such elasbody uneasy. If the dose, however, have been ticity, that he fancied that he could enter into a too large, it is not uncommon for several disagree-bottle and remain there at his ease; one individual able symptoms to show themselves. Flashes of fancied that he had become the piston of a steam heat seem to ascend to the head, and even a boil-engine; another felt himself growing into a baling sensation in the brain has been felt; a sensation loon, ready to float upon the air. Some of the which not unusually creates considerable alarm. young Europeans at Cairo, on their way home Singing in the ears is complained of; then comes after a feast of hashish, thought that the dark and on a state of anxiety, almost of anguish, with a dismal streets of the city had been suddenly illusense of constriction about the chest. Towards the minated; they persuaded each other that there epigastrium most of the untoward symptoms are was a magnificent fête going on, that the balconies referred. The individual fancies that he hears of the houses were filled with crowds dressed in the beating of his heart with unaccustomed loud-gala habits, and making loud noises, there being ness, but on placing the hand on the region of the no real foundation for the supposition beyond the heart, it will be ascertained that its action is per- return home of some persons attended by Arabs fectly normal. Throughout the whole period it carrying colored lanterns. is the nervous system that is affected, no other part of the body being acted upon; hashish thus materially differing from opium, whose power is marked upon the muscular and digestive system, retarding the action of the organs, and leaving them in a complete state of inaction.

Three persons had formed a party to try the hashish-an architect, who had travelled in Egypt and Nubia, Dr. Aubert Roche, and Dr. Moreau. At first the latter gentleman thought that his companions were less influenced by the drug than himself; then, as the effect increased upon him, he fancied that the person who had brought him the dose had given him some of more active quality. This he thought to himself was an imprudence, and then he involuntarily reflected that he might be poisoned; the idea became fixed; he called out loudly to Dr. Roche-" You are an assassin; you have poisoned me!" This was re

Under the influence of hashish, the ear lends itself more to the illusion than any other sense. It has been observed by those who devote their attention to the aberrations of intellect, that hallucinations of hearing are much more frequent than those of the eye or the other senses: for one diseased person who sees visions, there are three that are deceived by the ear; and the more intel-ceived with shouts of laughter, and his lamentations lectual are the more generally the prey to this affection. Luther held long conversations with a demon, and Tasso with an angel. The hashish gives to this sense an extreme delicacy and susceptibility it is felt within the whole system; the sound seems to reach the heart; it vibrates in the chest, and gradually awakens remembrances and associations of ideas, and imparts a feeling of increased sensibility. There is a species of ec

:

excited mirth. He struggled for some time against the thought; but the greater his efforts were, the more completely did it overcome him, till at last it took full possession of his mind: then a new illusion, the consequence of the first, drove all other thoughts from him. The extravagant conviction was uppermost that he was dead; that he was upon the point of being buried; his soul had left his body; in a few minutes he had gone