RETURN TO RABAT FROM SHAVOYA.
During my absence two daring crimes have been committed: a Shereff
stole one of the Sultan’s horses from the midst of the camp. The
Sultan sentenced him to lose his head. He then put in the plea of his
birth. “Then,” said the Sultan, “cut off his right hand, that he may
be disabled from disgracing his blood in this way in future.” There is
no executioner: the butchers are bound to perform this duty.[105] The
chief Jewish and chief Mussulman butcher being called, they offered
for a substitute by a sort of public auction, the crier commencing in
this way:--“Who will cut off a head” (or a hand) “for a dollar?--one
dollar offered,” and thus they ran up and down the street. No one
offering, they increased the bid to two, three dollars, &c. When they
had arrived at two doubloons (7_l._ 10_s._), a tall black stepped
forward and said, “That is my price.” A tub of tar was brought: the
black hacked off the hand in a hurry, and on dipping the stump into
the tar it proved to be cold. He had, however, bound the arm before
the amputation, and they ran to the neighbouring blacksmith’s shop for
embers, which they threw into the tar, and, setting it on fire, the
stump was then plunged in, and so scorched and burnt. The Shereff was
then let go.
In the other case, the culprit, a man from the interior, had killed a
lad who was ploughing, and carried off his cattle. The Sultan said to
the mother of the lad, “Excuse his life, and take one hundred dollars:”
she said, “I want the life of him who took the life of my son.” The
Sultan three times repeated his question, doubling his offer: she said,
“I ask what the law gives me, and that law you are Sultan to execute.”
The culprit was led out to execution: the head, as we returned, was on
the market-gate, and the dogs swarmed round the carcass.
The news of a change of ministry in England was conveyed to me in a
letter from Gibraltar, without any explanation: I sent to notify the
fact to the government. Mustafa Ducaly came to learn the particulars,
none of which I knew; and I explained to him what I supposed to be
the cause and circumstances, viz., the corn laws; and I added that
I expected the next news would be that Sir Robert Peel was again
in office with more tractable colleagues. This greatly damped the
excitement which the news had created, for they expected, on the return
of the former foreign minister to office, a war with France. They
were, however, interested in this event on other grounds, namely, the
admission of corn into England. I did not repeat to them a long-formed
conclusion, that Sir Robert Peel would be the man to open the ports,
as the reduction of the price of corn, without a relaxation of the
currency laws, was merely an augmentation of the value of money.
The Sultan is to remain here the winter, which I look upon as ominous
for the town, as, besides the inconvenience of his abode, there are
no resources in the place for this assemblage; and it is not in the
memory of man that the Court of Morocco has held the festivities of the
Baïram, or spent the winter out of one of the capitals, except in time
of war. The explanation given is, the disturbed and disaffected state
both of Morocco and Fez; but this is no explanation, for the presence
and not the absence of an Emperor of Morocco is the remedy against
disaffection. Fez is entirely commanded by the fortifications, and in
Morocco the Sultan is himself fortified. If there were danger from
either capital, the troops would be sent there, not kept here.[106]
The rumour of the discovery of mines had reached Rabat with speed and
exaggeration. Full of childish impatience, the Emperor sent immediately
for the specimens I had brought. Twenty camel-loads of the ore were
ordered down, and messengers were despatched to Rif to bring some of
the best workmen in iron. I asked for such workmen as they had to erect
a furnace, and we commenced operations in a little court behind the
consulate; but the furnace they made was only good enough for copper,
with the smelting of which they are familiar: we had, therefore, to
turn masons and bricklayers ourselves. We got what they assured us
were bricks of fire-clay; and we succeeded so well with the furnace
and the blast that we melted, like water, not the ore--but the bricks.
However, we did fuse a portion of the ore, and thus saved our credit.
After expeditions in search of fire-clay, and various renewed attempts,
I had to dissuade them from proceeding thus recklessly; and told them
that they might find as rich mines more conveniently situated, or
mines of some other metal better worth working; or iron, if not so
pure, more malleable (for on this their present instruments could make
no impression), or, in fact, coal and iron in juxta-position. They
answered, “No! no!--the tribes where these mines are, are submissive:
we don’t want to make the others fat.” Nothing would do but the new
hobby. They proposed to form a company of all the merchants. They were
bountiful in offers: one half of the proceeds of the mines in Shavoya,
and of that which they already worked in the Rif should be mine if I
would undertake to send proper persons to conduct the enterprise.
I thought this a favourable moment to press my request to be permitted
to go to Fez: I was told that if the Sultan were there, there would
be no difficulty, but at present it was impossible. I have therefore
determined on returning to Gibraltar, and visiting, if possible,
the mountainous district lying to the eastward of Larache, called
Serser, where sulphur, lead, and salt are already known, and there are
indications of coal.
The smelting is not the only business in which we have been engaged
in the back-yard. I had brought two camel-loads of boars, the produce
of our last day’s sport, before re-entering Rabat, with the design of
curing the hams. Our first construction of furnaces was for boiling
water for pig-scalding, in which, in consequence of the time that
had elapsed, we failed. The saying about a “pig coming to be shaved”
occurred to me, and I got a Jewish barber to do that work--and a
strange sight it was! It was hot work, between the smelting and the
boar-shaving, and we got more assistance in the one enterprise than
the other. Inexperienced in jointing and paring hams, I think we made
very sightly work of it. I was more at home at a _ragoût de Sanglier_,
of which an enormous cauldron figured among the operations of that
court-yard, to the high applause of all the Nazarene population that
chanced to be at Rabat. It was not, however, very easy to get at it
when cooked; for to all the plates, knives, and forks, saucers, and
tea-cups, &c., it was taboo.
While these operations were proceeding in the court-yard, the other
parts of the consulate were equally put in requisition for the purposes
of science. We had constructed a hydraulic blow-pipe, and the Moors
were delighted to behold spinning glass and little men, ships, &c.,
and no doubt many of these records of our visit will be treasured up
for future times. The kitchen was the scene of other labours--the
preparation of the wonderful _majoun_, made from the plant well known
as _hashish_, which is here grown as any other crop, and of which the
consumption is next to universal.
HASHISH.
This plant seems to have been known and used, as at present in Morocco,
in very ancient times, from the confines of China to the Western Ocean.
It appears as the _potomantes_ of the Indus, the _gelatophylis_ of
Bactria, the _achimenes_ of the Persians, the _ophisnu_ of Ethiopia,
the _nepenthes_ of the Greeks. The apparently contradictory qualities
ascribed to these may all be found in the hashish: like the ophisnu,
it recalls consciousness of the past and inordinate fears, on account
of which it was given as a punishment to those who had committed
sacrilege; but, above all, it brings too that forgetfulness for which
Helen administered to Telemachus the nepenthes, and which no doubt she
had learned in Egypt. Equally does it become a poison which absorbs all
others. It will explain the incantations of Circe, and the mysteries
of the cave of Trophonius. When taken without suspicion, its effects
would appear as the workings within themselves of the divinity. It goes
some way to account for the long endurance of a religious imposture, so
slightly wove and so incessantly rebelled against. Here was a means at
the disposal of the priest, diviner, and thaumaturgist, and beyond all
appeals to the mere imagination. The epithets which the Hindoos apply
to their _bangue_ might equally serve for the _hashish_--“assuager
of sorrow,” “increaser of pleasure,” “cementer of friendship,”
“laughter-mover.” Bangue, however, when often repeated, “is followed by
catalepsy, or that insensibility which enables the body to be moulded
into any position, like a Dutch jointed doll, in which the limbs remain
in the position in which they are placed, and this state will continue
for many hours.”[107]
It seems from an early period to have been used in China medicinally.
Fifteen hundred years ago, it was employed there as chloroform
recently has been in Europe; so that it may truly be said, “there
is nothing new under the sun.” The following passage occurs in “The
Compilation of Ancient and Modern Medicines,” published in China at the
beginning of the sixteenth century:--
“If the complaint is situated in parts upon which the needle, the
moxa, or liquid medicaments cannot produce any action--for instance,
in the bone, stomach, or intestines--there may be given to the
patient a preparation of hemp (_ma-yo_), and in a very short time he
becomes so insensible that he seems intoxicated or deprived of life.
Then, according as the case may be, the operations are performed, of
amputations, &c., and the cause of the malady is removed. Subsequently,
the tissues are brought together by sutures, and liniments are
employed. After some days the patient is restored to health, without
having felt, during the operation, the least pain.”[108]
Among the ancients of our part of the world, it appears to have been
employed by the mystics only, and not to have been in common use;
whereas, in China there was no more mystery attending it than in the
exhibition of any other drug; consequently, from China and from India
the Saracens may have got it. The term _hashish_[109] means plant in
general, but the preparation is called _majoun_--perhaps from the
Chinese _ma-yo_.
It was in Egypt, between the tenth and the fourteenth centuries, that
hashish was in its glory. He who wishes to know to what excess of
passion the use of this narcotic can inspire, may find his curiosity
gratified in an account, by Makrizi, of the “Herb of the Fakirs;” and
the notes appended to it by Mr. Silvestre de Sacy.[110]
In Mr. Von Hammer’s History of Hassan Saba, hashish figures as nerving
the arm of his followers to strike at ministers in the midst of their
guards, and at monarchs in the centre of their capitals.[111] The
terror with which these fanatics inspired the nations reached even to
this island, and the Commons of England obtained, as an antidote for
the hashish,[112] the serjeant-at-arms and the mace.
To this sect was given the name of Assassins. According to the highest
authorities, it comes from _ashasheen_, or eaters of hashish. But a
real existence is now denied to those enchanted gardens of Alamoot, and
they are explained as merely the visions created by the intoxicating
plant.[113] Visionary speculation! The preparation requisite for such
deeds was not opium or alcohol, far less a plant, the effect of which
exceeds intoxication, and approaches insanity.
The Ismalian departed on his journey of death _alone_. He followed his
victim for months and years; he traversed deserts and sojourned in
populous kingdoms and cities. It was an intoxication of the spirit,
not of the senses, that could so dare and so endure; neither softened
by intercourse, nor dismayed by solitude, and proof alike against the
virtues and the vices of our nature. If such deeds were the product of
this drug, they would appear when it was used.
Hassan Saba was one of those men, who being incomprehensible, is the
source of fables, devised by those who do not understand the results
they would account for. He combined leadership of men with the
priesthood of a sect, and inspired his followers with that boundless
awe and affection, which made them appear under the influence of a
supernatural agency. When he answered the demands of Malik Shah by
ordering two of his followers to cast themselves from a precipice, he
prepared them by no drug. The Ismalians, acting as men out of their
senses, would be called hashasheen, just as we would say Bedlamite. If
any set of men in Barbary were so conducting themselves, they would be
called hashishlee, though they had _never_ tasted majoun.
I was led to take an interest in this plant from the following
circumstance. A lady, suffering from spasms, arising from an affection
of the spine, had obtained some years ago a small portion of hashish
(at the time a name unknown), when all other narcotics had failed:
it afforded her an almost miraculous relief. Medical men had been
applied to in India to procure the bangue, but it failed. The hemp of
England had been tried in vain. I wrote to Mr. Lane, then in Egypt,
requesting him to obtain some, but he found it a disgraceful thing
to make inquiries on the subject. All these endeavours ended in
disappointment. Still I remained satisfied that there was such a plant.
At Tangier I observed a diminutive pipe, about the size of a thimble;
I asked what kind of tobacco they were smoking. I was answered, _kef_
(literally, enjoyment),--it was the hashish. I found that it was also
taken inwardly. Either the leaves are swallowed with water, after
being crushed, or it is prepared, and boiled with sugar or honey, and
butter, like horehound, a great variety of seeds and spices entering
into the composition, which is thus said to vary in its effects, and to
be gifted also with medicinal powers. This preparation is the majoun.
Its effects were described as those of the laughing gas, except that,
instead of a few minutes, it lasts for many hours. Some cry, some
laugh, some fall into drowsy listlessness; some are rendered talkative
and funny. They see visions, imagine themselves reduced to poverty,
or become emperors and commanders of armies, the natural disposition
predominating in the derangement. Men under its influence were pointed
out to me in the streets. They walked along with fixed eye, heedless of
all around them. Some take it daily in small quantities, producing, as
one of them described it to me, “a comfortable state of mind,” without
appearing to impair the general health. Under its influence the mouth
is parched; it is not in their power to spit. Their eyes become red and
small. They are ravenous for food. Everything that one hears of it has
the air of fable; and I should have been inclined to treat it as such,
but for the evidence of my own senses.
Finding that I could not understand from description either the mode
of preparing it, or the effects, I determined to get those who were
accustomed to make it to bring the materials, and prepare it before
me, and then to try it myself, and on as many others as I could. I was
so engaged for a week after my return to Rabat, for I had successively
the three most noted confectioners to try their skill against each
other. They have not a regular or uniform process, and the majoun is
consequently of very unequal strength and efficacy. Our first attempts
were failures. The first proof of the success of our preparation was
in the case of a young English clergyman, to whom some of it had been
given as a sweetmeat. Some hours passed without any visible effects,
when a musician, who had the faculty of strangely distorting his
features, came in, dressed as a mummer. The Englishman took him for the
devil, and a most laughable scene ensued. Next morning, on inquiries
after his health, he said he had slept soundly and agreeably, “as the
windows and doors were bolted.” Later in the day the effect disappeared
entirely, and he seemed to recollect the circumstances with a confused
pleasure, describing various things that had never happened.
The first time I took it was about seven in the morning, and in an hour
and a half afterwards I perceived a heaviness of the head, wandering
of the mind, and an apprehension that I was going to faint. I thence
passed into a state of half trance, from which I awoke suddenly, and
much refreshed. The impression was that of wandering out of myself. I
had two beings, and there were two distinct, yet concurrent trains of
ideas.
Images came floating before me--not the figures of a dream, but those
that seem to play before the eye when it is closed, and with those
figures were strangely mixed the sounds of a guitar that was being
played in the adjoining room: the sounds seemed to cluster in and
pass away with the figures on the retina. The music of the wretched
performance was heavenly, and seemed to proceed from a full orchestra,
and to be reverberated through long halls of mountains. These figures
and sounds were again connected with metaphysical reflections, which
also, like the sounds, clustered themselves into trains of thought,
which seemed to take form before my eyes, and weave themselves with the
colours and sounds. I was following a train of reasoning; new points
would occur, and concurrently there was a figure before me throwing
out corresponding shoots like a zinc tree; and then, as the moving
figures reappeared, or as the sounds caught my ear, the other classes
of figures came out distinctly, and danced through each other.
The reasonings were long and elaborate; and though the impression of
having gone through them remains, every effort has been in vain to
recall them. The following scene was described by me, and taken down at
the time:--
A general, commanding an army, and doubting whether he should engage
the enemy, consulted the oracle. The oracle answered, “Go with the
fortune of Cæsar.” He gave battle, and was beaten; his king ordered his
head to be cut off, but the general accused the oracle: the king said,
“The oracle is not in fault; it did not tell you that you were Cæsar;
you were twice a fool to mistake its meaning, and your own worth.” The
general answered, “Then is the fault his who sent a fool to command his
armies.” “Nay,” answered the king, “thou shalt not twist one phrase to
thy benefit, and another to my loss.” This scene seemed to pass before
me, and in the region of Carthage, which was all familiar, though I had
never been there. The general was an Abyssinian, the king a white man
with a black beard.
The next time I tried it, the only effect was to make me lose a night’s
rest; the first time, it had given me a double portion of sleep: on
both occasions it enormously increased my appetite. It was followed by
no depression. The third time I took it, at half-past four, and after
it, a liqueur glass of caraway spirits to hasten the effect. An hour
afterwards, walking on the terrace, I began to experience the effects.
I did not feel cold, while those who were walking with me, and wrapt
in mantles were complaining of it. They profess to be able to prepare
it, so that it shall serve a man instead of clothing. Then came an
unsteadiness of gait--not that of one who fears to fall--but of one who
tries to keep down, for I felt as if there were springs in my knees,
and was reminded of the story of the man with the mechanical leg, that
walked away with him. I sat down to dinner at half past six o’clock.
There was a glass between me and the rest of the company, and an inch
or two interposed between me and whatever I touched. What I ate, or how
much, did not matter;--the food flowed like a river through me. There
was a wind going by, blowing over the table, and carrying away the
sounds, and I saw the words tumbling over one another down the falls.
There is a dryness of the mouth, which is not thirst. The dryness
radiated from the back of the throat, opposite the nape of the neck. It
was a patch of dark blue colour; the food, as it reached this point,
pouring down, and taking the colour of the patch. I was under the
impression that I described all this at the time, but was told that I
would not say anything about myself, or describe what I experienced.
I should have been relieved if some one present had been under the same
influence. The bursts of laughter to which I gave rise were not at all
pleasing, except when they were excited by any observation I made which
was not connected with myself. I never lost the consciousness of what
was going on; there were always present the real objects, as well as
the imaginative ones; but at times I began to doubt which was which,
and then I floated in strange uncertainty. It came by fits at--as I
thought--hours of interval, when only minutes could have elapsed.
Sometimes a week seemed to pass between the beginning and the end of a
word. I fancied my head an inverted pendulum, which it cost me a great
deal of labour to keep straight, when I could resist no longer, and let
it go, and it went back as if a blow had been discharged. I struggled
against each relapse, out of a sense of politeness towards the company,
of which I did not fail to inform them, notwithstanding their roars of
laughter. The back of my neck was the pivot; there was a heavy upper
weight on the top of my head, and the pendulum was swinging between my
legs; but the pendulum was attracted upwards to the table, and I had
to struggle to keep it down by keeping my head up. The swinging fit
was accompanied by bursts of laughter. I derived great pleasure from
allowing my head to go back; but the laughter was unlike any mortal
merriment; it seemed as never to end, and to press me, and to lead up
to a mountain-top. When any one put his hand behind my head, fearing
the effect of the jerks, or that I should throw the chair over, I was
very much annoyed, because it disturbed, as I said, “the isochronism of
the oscillations.”
I afterwards saw a similar effect produced on a European who did not
know what he had taken. He was constantly throwing back his head and
looking at the ceiling, and exhibited no other symptom, which only made
this the more ludicrous.
After keeping the party for four hours in a state of continual
convulsion, I became irresistibly drowsy, and was moved away to bed.
This operation sickened me, and brought on a slight vomiting. The
instant I was in bed I fell asleep, and slept without intermission
for nine hours; I then awoke, perfectly recovered, and fresh, with a
feeling of lightness, and in high spirits.
One of the most remarkable effects was, that it seemed to lay bare your
inmost thoughts, and to present a mirror, on which was reflected every
act of your life, and that you were constrained to reveal and confess
it all; which exactly agrees with effects attributed to the ophisnu.
The Jews are in the habit of taking hashish on Saturday, as it
ensures, they say, their doing no work on Sunday. A party of them will
agree to take it together, and go out to a garden. One of them, being
asked to describe a scene of that kind, said, “We were eight, and seven
took to laughing, and one to crying, and the more he cried the more we
laughed, and the more we laughed the more he cried, and so we spent the
night, and in the morning we went to bed.”
After being satisfied with my preparation, I devoted a day to the
trying of the experiment on a number of patients. Two or three took it
in the morning, and each as he had taken it became exceedingly anxious
to administer it to others, so that patients were sought in every place
and by every means. Many who took it went away, so that I did not see
the effect on more than a dozen. On the whole I was disappointed: there
was not one interesting case, though there were not two alike.
The master of a Portuguese vessel, to whom it was given without his
being aware of its nature, thought himself bewitched, and his crew were
on the point of securing him as deranged. He saw a ship stranded on the
bar, and ordered out his boats to her assistance; he then saw the devil
cooking in the caboose, and with the demeanour of an insane person, was
all the while reasoning on the evidences of his insanity.
Having at one time been in the habit of taking opium, I am able
to compare the effects. The idea of a strong resemblance has been
generally admitted; but in this I cannot agree. In De Quincy’s
“Confessions of an Opium-Eater,” there are passages which might pass
for a description of hashish, but they do not appear to me to be
descriptive of opium: opium does not give the double identity, and the
hashish draws towards insanity: the hashish does not affect either the
nervous system or the viscera. The length of time that elapses before
it begins to act, shows that it has first to be taken into the blood.
I have witnessed its effects in relieving pains and spasms, which
differ from those of ordinary narcotics.[114] It is an anodyne and an
anti-spasmodic, producing intoxication without its consequences, and
dispelling its effects.
The French have become intoxicated with hashish. A number of works
and essays have been published on the subject in Paris. Multitudes of
experiments have been made, and endless visions seen or described. From
these I select one specimen, which to him who has eaten hashish bears
intrinsic evidence, _pour le fond_, of being genuine. “It appeared
that his body was dissolved, that he had become transparent. He
clearly saw in his chest the hashish which he had swallowed, under the
form of an emerald, from which a thousand little sparks issued. His
eyelashes were lengthened out indefinitely, and rolled like threads of
gold around ivory balls, which turned with an inconceivable rapidity.
Around him were sparklings of precious stones of all colours, changes
eternally produced, like the play of the kaleidoscope. He every now
and then saw his friends who were around him disfigured--half men,
half plants; some with the wings of the ostrich, which they were
constantly shaking. So strange were these, that he burst into fits of
laughter; and to join in the apparent ridiculousness of the affair,
he began throwing the cushions in the air, catching and turning them
with the rapidity of an Indian juggler. One gentleman spoke to him
in Italian, which the hashish transposed into Spanish. After a few
minutes he recovered his habitual calmness, without any bad effect,
without headache, and only astonished at what had passed. Half-an-hour
had scarcely elapsed before he fell again under the influence of
the drug. On this occasion the vision was more complicated and
more extraordinary. In the air there were millions of butterflies,
confusedly luminous, shaking their wings like fans. Gigantic flowers
with chalices of crystal, large peonies upon beds of gold and silver,
rose and surrounded him with the crackling sound that accompanies the
explosion in the air of fireworks. His hearing acquired new power:
it was enormously developed. He heard the noise of colours. Green,
red, blue, yellow sounds reached him in waves. He swam in an ocean of
sound, where floated, like isles of light, some of the airs of 'Lucia
di Lammermuir,’ and the 'Barber of Seville.’ Never did similar bliss
overwhelm him with its waves: he was lost in a wilderness of sweets;
he was not himself; he was relieved from consciousness--that feeling
which always pervades the mind; and for the first time he comprehended
what might be the state of existence of elementary beings, of angels,
of souls separated from the body: all his system seemed infected with
the fantastic colouring in which he was plunged. Sounds, perfume,
light, reached him only by minute rays, in the midst of which he heard
magnetic currents whistling along. According to his calculation, this
state lasted about three hundred years; for the sensations were so
numerous and so hurried, one upon the other, that a real appreciation
of time was impossible. The paroxysm over, he was aware that it had
only lasted a quarter of an hour.”
The Moors have long been in possession of Dr. Hunter’s idea,[115] that
certain qualities are conveyed by certain kinds of food: his notion is,
however, limited to corporeal effects. Thus, a person with an affection
of the liver should eat the liver of animals--the heart, &c. The Moors
imagine that the mind can in like manner be affected, and that the
quality of the animal is conveyed to the eater. The flesh of the fox
gives cunning, the heart of the lion inspires courage. Probably it
was to improve her complexion that the African Cleopatra ate pearls.
To designate a stupid person, they say, “He has eaten the head of a
hyena;” and as the hyena is very fond of hashish, his fixed eye and
stupid look are attributed to the effect of that plant, for he will
sit in the bottom of his den and allow it to be entered by a man who
shoots, stabs, or nooses him. They give it also to horses, as it was
told me first, to make them fiery; but on further inquiry, I found that
it was given to them as a purge, and that afterwards they leave them in
repose like men, as they are unable to keep their feet.
There are several other plants which they employ for producing similar
effects--that which I afterwards found at Medea, and which is there
described as the _surnag_,[116] which is found in the Atlas, and which
is used for the same purpose; also the nuts of a species of the Palma
Christi, which they mix with food, and the effect of which lasts but a
few hours. This is said to be used to make people speak the truth, and
discover their inward thoughts.[117]
Extensive as is the use of this drug, it is not used by the gentleman.
On him observances are heaped which the vulgar escape, and indulgences
denied which they enjoy. A Moorish gentleman is more constrained and
more observed than the same class in any other country: he must be
punctual in the discharge of his religious duties, which are neglected
by the mass of the people; he must pay the regular alms to the poor; he
abstains from all kinds of fermented liquors: he does not smoke or take
snuff.
[105] “The butchers, that they might not be
compelled to execute this sentence, took sanctuary.
A stranger, and a ruffian, was found, who consented
to perform the service. The gates were shut to keep
the people in meanwhile. When over, and the gates
were opened, the soldiers refused to protect the
executioner. He was then chased like a mad dog by the
children into the country, and then shot by a relation
of the deceased.”--HAY’S _Western Barbary_.
[106] I may here anticipate the event which occurred
a fortnight afterwards. One morning the leaders of the
revolt, amounting to eighteen, were secured, Mike Brettel,
of course, among the number. The whole was considered a
master-stroke of policy, dexterity, and dissimulation:
however, it failed in one point. By such influences as
Walter Scott exhibits in the opening of the Tolbooth of
Glasgow to Rob Roy, some of the chiefs _who belonged to
clans_, escaped the Sultan. He thought it needless, and
perhaps imprudent, to proceed against the mere citizens.
[107] Dr. Thompson’s Notes to M. Salvert’s Occult
Sciences, vol. ii. p. 10.
[108] Kou-kin-I-Tong, as quoted by M. S. Julien, in
a recent memoir to the Academy of Sciences.
[109] The proper name in Morocco is _shazar_. The
young plant just sprouting is called _nucla_.
[110] Chrest. Arabe, tom. i. p. 210. See also
Sonnini, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 103; Kiempfer, Amœnit.
Exoticæ, Fasc. iii. ob. xv. p. 638.
[111] Hassan Saba founded the Ismaelians of Persia
at Rudbor in 1090.
Their most illustrious victims were, Ameer Billah,
Calif of Egypt, A.H. 524; Mostarschid, Calif
of Bagdad, A.H. 529; Nezam al Mulk, the
celebrated Vizier of the Seljucks, 485.
[112] See “Merchant and Friar,” by Sir W. Palgrave.
[113] “L’effet du hachich étoit de leur procurer un
état extatique, une douce et profonde reverie, pendant
laquelle ils jouissaient, ou s’imaginaient jouir de
toutes les voluptés que embellissent le paradis de
Mahomet. Les jardins enchantés, où le Vieux de la
Montaigne fasait porter les jeunes gens, étaient un
fantôme produit par l’imagination de ces jeunes gens
enivrés par le hachich, et qu’on avait long temps
bercés de l’image de ce bonheur.”--SILVESTRE DE SACY.
[114] In an interesting article in Chambers’s
Magazine of November 1848, the writer says:--
“It is the nervous system that is affected, no
other part of the body being acted upon; hashish thus
materially differing from opium, whose power is marked
upon the muscular and digestive systems, retarding the
action of the organs, and leaving them in a complete
state of inaction. The circulation does not seem to
be affected; but it is not with impunity that the
brain becomes disordered with frequent indulgence in
the delicious poison: it becomes incapable at last of
separating the true from the false.”
[115] See his Cookery Book.
[116] Marmol, vol. iii. p. 4.
[117] In Hunter’s “Captivity” there is an interesting
account of the plants used by the Red Indians for smoking,
inhaling, and also for sweating.