Читать книгу The Seven Sisters of Sleep. Popular History of the Seven Prevailing Narcotics of the World онлайн

53 страница из 77

The inhabitants of Yemen smoke their well-loved dschihschi pipes, with long stems passed through water, that the smoke may come cold to the mouth; and which, when a few inveterate smokers meet together, keep up a boiling and bubbling noise, not unlike a distant corps of drummers in full performance.

In the Austrian dominions, the lovers of the pipe may be found amongst all classes of the community. Köhl writes, that after taking two or three pipes of tobacco with the pasha at New Orsova, he went into the market-place, where he found several merchants who invited him to sit down, and again he was presented with a pipe. From this place he went to a mosque, calling in at a school on his way:——“The little Turkish students were making a most heathenish noise, which contrasted amusingly with the quiet and sedate demeanour of their teacher, who lay stretched upon a bench, where he smoked his pipe, and said nothing.” He afterwards went to look at the fortifications, and here and there saw a sentinel, with his musket in one hand and pipe in the other. “Twenty-five soldiers were seen smoking under a shed, and on the ground lay a number of shells or hollow balls, which they assured us were filled with powder and other combustibles, yet the soldiers smoked among them unconcernedly, and allowed us to do the same.” A gentleman from Constantinople told him that he had seen worse instances of carelessness, in Asia Minor. He had there been one day in the tents of a pasha, where some wet powder was drying and being made into cartridges, and the men engaged in the work were smoking all the while.