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

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In the “Stettin Gazette,” lately appeared a notification that the Prussian clergy had privately been requested by the higher authorities to abstain from smoking in public. We are not accustomed to it, and should certainly think it odd to see clergymen perambulating the streets with short pipes in their mouths.

In all parts of the Sultan’s dominions, the pipe or narghilè has a stem generally flexible, about six feet in length; and at this the owner will suck for hours. You may see a man travelling, mounted aloft on a tall camel, with his body oscillating to and fro like a sailor’s when he rows, but still that man has his two yards of pipe before him. You may see two men caulking a ship’s side as she lies careened near the shore. Up to their waists in water, they act up to the principle of division of labour; for one will smoke as the other plies the hammer, and then the worker takes his turn at the narghilè. Arabs sitting at work, fix their pipes in the sand. In the potteries both hands must be employed—how, then, can the potter smoke? Necessity is the mother of invention. One end of the pipe is suspended by a cord from the ceiling, the other is in the potter’s mouth.