I immediately gave a sketch of my vision, and of the opinions which had
been expressed by Ambrosio on the early 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