Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1879-11-20
DRINKING SMOKE.

Charles Warren stoddard, Now in Per.
sia, Tries to Drive Tobacco Lovers
Mad.
From His Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle.
We gathered in the cosiest corner of
the room. We clapped our hands;
servant who was nodding in the all en-.
tered, and at once began preparing the
pipes. He placed crystal vase before
each of us, it was mounted with fretted
silver, and was topped with an elaborate
ly gilded earthen bowl; from its neck
the snske-like stem, a fathom long,
wound with threads Of gold and silver,
stretched to the lips, upon which rested
mouthpiece of clouded amber. The
vase was half filled with rose water, and
in eaca vase a handful of fresh rose
leaves was sopped IN this water: The
pipe-bearer then took handful or tum-
bak, q mild, sweet, Persian weed,
plunged it into basin of water, and
wrung it out Ikea sponge. We regard
ed with curious eyes the PREPARATION
80 would you. The tumbak is still damp;
he presses it into the pipe-bowl and
heaped it up, making little nest in the
center of it. Then live coal is placed
in the nest, where it sends up thin, fra
graft steam. You throw yourself back
upon the cushions of the divan; you
place upon your lips the superb amber
mouthpiece, three or four inches in
length, and carved, or girdled with
hoops of gold. You exhaust your lungs,
and draw in, through the glittering coils
of the stem, volumes OF cool. deoderized
smoke. Ii this smoke has any flavor, it
is not that of tobacco; it is infinitely
finer, sweeter, more delicate. Is it the
rose-water through which the smoke has
passed by means of tube that extends
from the base of the bowl nearly to the
bottom of the vase and then rises in
bubbles like snow-balls aud enters the
flexible stem near the throat of the vase?
Or is it the moist tumbak, exuding some
subtitle essence under the hot breath of
the glowing Goals? Or is it only fancy
that possesses one when the nargilich is
we'll lighted and the pipe bearer sits by
watching it as if life hung upon the con-
sumption of this solitary smoke? Occas-
ionally he probes the bowl or places
fresh Goals within it, and then he smiles
as the white clouds pour forth in immense
volumes and fill the chamber with
the incense of the Orient. The
inhalation is complete; one breathes
the smoke of tumbak as he breathes the
very air; the bosom heaves like the rise
and fall of great wave at sea; you i'm.
agine you are doubling your inches across
the chest; pleasurable thrill is commu-
nicated to every nerve in tho body.
You flood your whole interior with
smoke. A happy thought strikes you,
you laugh, and the cloud that is dis.
charged from your mouth is. like smoke
belched from a cannon. There is some
thing suggestive of intoxication in all
this. The water bubbles in the cisterr
of the pipe; the rose leaves tumble
about and delight the eye; the gurgle
soothes the ear; the palate is enchanted
with long draughts of an impalpable
essence from source that seems abso
lutely inexhaustib]e. Drinking
SMOKE" the Arabs call it. It is the onlJ
term they use to express the act. And
pray, why should they not drink it
when it has been tried by fire, filtered il
bath of roses, chilled in it's figh
through that writhing step, and slid a
last through handful of glowing am
horW