ess.
I recollect hearing Francois' voice. He told me afterwards that I arose,
attempted to dress myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back
into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the
least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty
hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and
unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I
knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still
remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no
refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort to
comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and
Reason had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.

My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me
to the adjoining bath, which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was
with great difficulty that I preserved the outward appearance of
consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell over my mind,
and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I
awoke with a shock, to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath, with a
brown Syrian polishing my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been
rambling and incoherent, and that the menials who had me in charge
understood my condition, for as soon as I had stretched myself upon the
couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sherbet was presented
to me, and after drinking it I experienced instant relief. Still the spell
was not wholly broken, and for two or three days I continued subject to
frequent involuntary fits of absence, which made me insensible, for the
time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets of Damascus
with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same
time, and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions.

Previous to the experiment, we had decided on making a bargain with the
shekh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however, in which we now
found ourselves, obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
of a forced march across the desert, and a conflict with the hostile
Arabs, which was quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in
throwing off the baneful effects of the drug; but all the charm which lay
in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest of the trip, was gone. I
was without courage and