II. Nightmare.
ONE of the most delightful of the many sensations produced by hachish is the one which the Orientals call "Keef." It often follows upon periods of great mental excitement, and may be described as a feeling of immense and illimitable calm, of sublime spiritual elevation, and of complete liberation from the trammels of the flesh. The true body seems to painlessly shrivel and shrink off, leaving nothing but a kind of linga sharira, or astral body, which is transparent and imponderable. While he is in this blissful condition the hachish-eater floats like thistle-down in the air, but, instead of being the sport of the breeze, he can by the slightest possible exercise of the will, or rather of the wish, transport himself in any direction or to any distance. And so real is this sensation that once, when I was enjoying it and was, in imagination,