ly history of man, and the
termination of our discussions on religion.

_The Stranger_.--I agree with Ambrosio in opinion on the subjects you
have just mentioned. In my youth, I was a sceptic; and this I believe is
usually the case with young persons given to general and discursive
reading, and accustomed to adopt something like a mathematical form in
their reasonings; and it was in considering the nature of the
intellectual faculties of brutes, as compared with those of man, and in
examining the nature of instinctive powers, that I became a believer.
After I had formed the idea that Revelation was to man in the place of an
instinct, my faith constantly became stronger; and it was exalted by many
circumstances I had occasion to witness in a journey that I made through
Egypt and a part of Asia Minor, and by no one more than by a very
remarkable dream which occurred to me in Palestine, and which, as we are
now almost at the hour of the siesta, I will relate to you, though
perhaps you will be asleep before I have finished it. I was walking
along that deserted shore which contains the ruins of Ptolemais, one of
the most ancient ports of Judaea. It was evening; the sun was sinking in
the sea; I seated myself on a rock, lost in melancholy contemplations on
the destinies of a spot once so famous in the history of man. The calm
Mediterranean, bright in the glowing light of the west, was the only
object before me. "These waves," I said to myself, "once bore the ships
of the monarch of Jerusalem which were freighted with the riches of the
East to adorn and honour the sanctuary of Jehovah; here are now no
remains of greatness or of commerce; a few red stones and broken bricks
only mark what might have been once a flourishing port, and the citadel
above, raised by the Saracens, is filled with Turkish soldiers." The
janissary, who was my guide, and my servant, were preparing some food for
me in a tent which had been raised for the purpose, and whilst waiting
for their summons to my repast, I continued my reveries, which must
gradually have ended in slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me,
whom, at first, I took for my janissary, but as he came nearer I found a
very different figure. He was a very old man with a beard as white as
snow; his countenance was dark but paler than that of an Arab, and his
features stern, wild, and with a peculiar savage expression; his form was
gigantic, but his arms were withered and there was