CH. VIII.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 155
palm of the left hand with the thumb of the right, a few drops of water being
poured on it from time to time. When it ceases to part with any colour to
the water, it is ready to be smoked. The chillum is a bowl with a short neck
issuing straight from the bottom of it, all made of clay; the same that is
commonly used for smoking tobacco. It is laid with a foundation of a smal l
quantity of tobacco. On this is placed the washed ganja which has been chopped
up and another thin layer of tobacco. A live coal is placed on the charged
pipe, a damp cloth is generally wrapped round the neck of it and folded into the
palm of the left hand, while the pipe is grasped by the neck between the thumb
and first finger. The right hand is pressed, fingers upwards, against the cloth
and neck of the pipe, and the draught is made through the space between the
thumb and first finger of this hand. A few short breaths are blown and drawn
to light up the pipe, and when this is accomplished one long deep draught is
taken with the lungs. The pipe is then handed on to a companion, and so goes
the round of the circle.
Manner of smoking charas.
417. In Bengal charas is only used by people in good circumstances. It
is in the Punjab and North-Western Provinces that
most is to be learnt about the ordinary method of
consuming it. It varies in quality and price, and is often very much adulterated.
It is almost wholly used for smoking. A quantity, not larger than is usually
put into the ganja pipe, is buried or kneaded up in two or three times the
quantity of tobacco in the form (gurakhu) in which it is prepared for smoking
with the huka. The huka is then smoked in the ordinary way, the draught
being taken into the lungs. Dry tobacco may be used instead of the prepared
tobacco, and the chillum instead of the huka.
Other ways of smoking.
418. Ganja also is sometimes smoked in the huka, and other implements
and means of smoking are mentioned. Thus in
Bombay and the Central Provinces epicures occa-
sionally use a pipe made of sugarcane in preference to the chillum. There are
also certain rude expedients in vogue amongst jungle people for the smoking of
tobacco, which are no doubt resorted to in connection with the hemp drug, and
some of which appear in the evidence. The pipe bowl may be constructed in the
ground, and a reed used to communicate with the mouth. A pipe or cigarette may
be made with leaves. The leaf cigarette containing a mixture of tobacco and hemp
leaves is spoken of in the Madras Presidency. A green branch of the Euphorbia
neriifolia can be readily fashioned into a pipe, and is commonly used on emergency
in the Satpura Hills. And in connection with the smoking of charas, there appears
to be a custom at religious gatherings in Upper India for religious mendicants to
sling a huge chillum containing a sér or more of the drug to a tree so that all
comers may partake of it. Bhang, i.e., hemp leaves, or the very inferior kinds of
ganja or ganja refuse, is only smoked under the compulsion of poverty or want
of the better article.
Mixture of spices in smoking.
419. The above are the simplest forms in which the drugs are smoked. But
the well-to-do are fond of flavouring the pipe with
spices. The mixture with tobacco has the effect of
making the pipe burn properly and go further, and of diluting the smoke which
is inhaled; but other explanations are given of the reason for using tobacco
with the drugs. Spices give fragrance and flavour to the pipe, and possibly,
some of them, pungency. Those commonly used are musk, mace, saffron,