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Turkish pipe-bowls, or Lules, are composed of the red clay of Nish, mixed with the white earth of the Roustchouck. They are very graceful in form, and are in some cases ornamented with gilding. The “regular Turk” prefers a fresh bowl daily; therefore the plain ones are resorted to on the score of economy. In Turkey and some other parts of the Orient, it is not unusual to compute distances, or rather the duration of a journey, by the numbers of pipes which might be smoked in the time necessary to accomplish it.

The pipe of the German is, almost universally, the Meerschaum, that pipe of fame so coveted by the Northern smoker. These articles are composed of a kind of magnesian earth, known to the Tartars of the Crimea as keff-til. Pallas erroneously supposed that this kind of earth was so denominated from Caffa, and therefore the name signified “Caffa earth.” From “Meninski’s Oriental Dictionary” it would appear to be a derivation of two Turkish words which signify “foam” or “froth” of the “earth.” The French name, écume de mer, or “scum of the sea,” and the Germans’ “sea foam,” have doubtless an intimate relationship with this same “keff til” of the Crimean Tartars.