Things which I could not know, which my imagination, working in the service of the will, could never have bodied forth, were before me as in life itself.

I consciously wondered at peculiarities of costume such as I had never read of; at features of architecture entirely new to me; at insignificant characteristics of that by-gone world, which by no possibility could have been gathered from books.

I recall a succession of faces, the loveliest conceivable; and I remember, I feel to this moment the pang of regret with which I lost sight of each when it faded into darkness.
As an example of the more elaborate visions that passed before me, I will mention the only one which I clearly recollect.

It was a glimpse of history.

When Hannibal, at the end of the second Punic War, was confined to the south of Italy, he made Croton his head-quarters, and when, in reluctant obedience to Carthage, he withdrew from Roman soil, it was at Croton that he embarked.