Mr. Madden, in his recent _Travels in Turkey_, having determined to
experience the effects of that pestilent practice of eating opium,
which is so common in Turkey, he repaired to the market of Theriaki
Tchachissy, where he seated himself among the persons who were in the
habit of resorting thither for the purpose of enjoying (?) this fatal
pleasure. His description of those victims to sensuality is very
striking, and is enough to cure any man of common sense of wishing
to become an opium eater.
"Their gestures were frightful; those who were completely under the
influence of the opium talked incoherently, their features were flushed,
their eyes had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression of
their countenances was horribly wild. The effect is usually produced in
two hours, and lasts four or five; the dose varies from three grains
to a drachm. I saw one old man take four pills, of six grains each,
in the course of two hours; I was told he had been using opium for
five-and-twenty years; but this is a very rare example of an opium eater
passing thirty years of age, if he commence the practice early. The
debility, both moral and physical, attendant on its excitement, is
terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed, every fibre in the body
trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get
rigid; several of these I have seen, in this place, at various times,
who had wry necks and contracted fingers; but still they cannot abandon
the custom; they are miserable till the hour arrives for taking their
daily dose; and when its delightful influence begins, they are all
fire and animation. Some of them compose excellent verses, and others
addressed the bystanders in the most eloquent discourses, imagining
themselves to be emperors, and to have all the harems in the world at
their command. I commenced with one grain; in the course of an hour and
a half it produced no perceptible effect, the coffee-house keeper was
very anxious to give me an additional pill of two grains, but I was
contented with half a one; and another half hour, feeling nothing of the
expected reverie, I took half a grain more, making in all two grains in
the course of two hours. After two hours and a half from the first dose,
I took two grains more; and shortly after this dose, my spirits became
sensibly excited; the pleasure of the sensation seemed to depend on a
universal expansion of mind and matter. My faculties appeared enlarged;
every thing I looked on seemed increased in volume; I had no longer the
same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had when they were open; it
appeared to me as if it was only external objects, which were acted on
by the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure; in short, it
was 'the faint exquisite music of a dream' in a waking moment. I made my
way home as fast as possible, dreading, at every step, that I should
commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet
touching the ground, it seemed as if I slid along the street, impelled
by some invisible agent, and that my blood was composed of some ethereal
fluid, which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the moment
I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my
brain all night. In the morning I rose, pale and dispirited; my head
ached; my body was so debilitated that I was obliged to remain on the
sofa all the day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium eating."
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Old Poets.
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