Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Footnotes are located at the end of the book.
Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold thus =bold=, spaced thus
+spaced+ and superscript thus a^x.
[Illustration: Japanese smokers.]
THE
SEVEN SISTERS
OF
SLEEP.
POPULAR HISTORY OF THE SEVEN PREVAILING
NARCOTICS OF THE WORLD.
BY
M. C. COOKE,
DIRECTOR OF THE METROPOLITAN SCHOLASTIC MUSEUM.
“‘How many are you, then?’ said I.
‘O Master, we are seven.’”
WORDSWORTH.
“To re-create for man, whate’er
Was lost in Paradise.”
SOUTHEY’S THALABA.
LONDON:
JAMES BLACKWOOD, PATERNOSTER ROW.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
Dedication.
TO ALL LOVERS OF TOBACCO, IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD,
JUVENILE AND SENILE, MASCULINE AND FEMININE;
AND TO ALL ABSTAINERS,
+VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY+——
+TO ALL OPIOPHAGI, AT HOME AND ABROAD+,
WHETHER EXPERIENCING THE PLEASURES, OR PAINS
OF THE SEDUCTIVE DRUG——
+TO ALL HASCHISCHANS, EAST AND WEST,
IN WHATEVER FORM THEY CHOOSE+
TO WOO THE SPIRIT OF DREAMS——
+TO ALL BUYEROS, MALAYAN OR CHINESE+,
WHETHER THEIR SIRI-BOXES ARE FULL, OR EMPTY——
+TO ALL COQUEROS, WHITE OR SWARTHY,
FROM THE BASE TO THE SUMMIT+
OF THE MIGHTY CORDILLERAS——
TO ALL VOTARIES OF STRAMONIUM AND HENBANE,
HIGHLANDER, OR LOWLANDER—
AND
+TO ALL SWALLOWERS OF AMANITA+,
EITHER IN SIBERIA OR ELSEWHERE——
+THESE PAGES COME GREETING+
WITH THE BEST WISHES
OF THEIR OBEDIENT SERVANT,
_The Author_.
PREFATORY PREMONITION.
“A certain miller was much annoyed by a goblin, who used to come and set
his mill at work at night when there was no grain to be ground, greatly
to the danger of the machinery, so he desired a person to watch. This
person, however, always fell asleep, but once woke up from a nap time
enough to see the mill in full operation, a blazing fire, and the
goblin himself, a huge hairy being, sitting by the side thereof. ‘Fat’s
yer name?’ said the Highlander. ‘Ourisk,’ said the unwelcome guest;
‘and what is yours?’ ‘Myself,’ was the reply; ‘her nain-sell.’ The
goblin now went quietly to sleep, and the Highlander, taking a shovel
of hot coals, flung them into the hairy lap of the goblin, who was
instantly in a blaze. Out ran the monster to his companions, making
as much noise as he could. ‘Well,’ said they, ‘who set you on fire?’
‘Myself,’ said the unlucky monster. ‘Well, then, you must put it out
yourself,’ was the consoling rejoinder.”
Some of my readers may arrive at the conclusion, that I, like the
Ourisk, have trespassed upon other people’s property, and ground my
corn at their mill. Let it not be assumed, on my account, inasmuch
as I do not myself make that assumption, that I have journeyed from
Cornhill to Cathay, in search of those who habituate themselves to
the indulgences herein set forth. Others have laboured, and I have
eaten of the fruits of their labours. Travellers numberless have
contributed to furnish my table, in some instances, without even
thanks for their pains. This is the way of the world, and I am not
a whit better than my neighbours. Let it, therefore, be understood,
that I make no pretensions to aught beyond the form in which these
numerous contributions are now presented to the reader. The tedium of
wading through volume after volume in search of information on these
subjects has been performed for him, and compacted together into a
pocket companion, saving, thereby, to him, a large amount of trouble,
and a small amount of vexation. Private correspondence has furnished
a portion of the information. Those who may recognise my own poaching
pranks upon their domains may throw coals of fire upon my lap, and
leave “Myself” to extinguish the flame.
Herein the reader will find only a popular history of the most
important Narcotics indulged in, and the customs connected with that
indulgence. Mere statistical details have as much as possible been
avoided, and those calculated to interest the more matter-of-fact
reader added in a tabulated form, as an appendix. The majority of these
tables have been compiled from official documents, trade circulars, or
commercial returns, and care has been taken to render them correct up
to the period of their dates. In this department I am largely indebted
to the valuable assistance of P. L. Simmonds, Esq., F.S.S., to whom I
thus tender my thanks.
Those who are desirous of seeing specimens of the narcotics named in
the following pages, can visit either the Museum of the Royal Botanic
Gardens at Kew, the East India House Museum, the Food Department in the
gallery of the South Kensington Museum, or the Industrial Museum in
the gallery of the central transept of the Crystal Palace, in each of
which they will meet with some of the articles named, though in none of
them will they discover all. In the former two are illustrations of the
opium manufacture, and at Kensington an interesting series of tobaccos,
and other articles connected with the indulgence therein, and also with
opium-smoking in China, together with some of the tobacco substitutes
and sophistications. None of these collections are so complete as they
might be. Public museums of this kind have every facility for doing
more to instruct the public on the common things of every-day life: why
they do not accomplish this, is as much a fault, perhaps, of the public
as of themselves. There are hopes, however, to be entertained that
one, at least, of these institutions will exhibit, in a complete and
collected form, the principal narcotics and their substitutes.
Why I should have chosen such a title for my volume, and wherefore
invested it with a legend, is matter of little importance. It was a
fancy of my own, and if any think fit to quarrel with it, they may do
so, without disturbing my peace of mind. The reply of the Ourisk to his
companions, as to who set him on fire, was, “Myself.”
Parents seldom baptize their children with a name pleasing to all their
friends and relatives, yet the child manages to get through the world
with it, and—dies at last.
M. C. C.
_Lambeth._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.—SOMEWHAT FABULOUS. PAGE
The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus; Legend of the Seven Sisters of Sleep;
Laureates of Sleep; Necessity of Sleep; Pleasures of Sleep; Sanctity
of Sleep; The “Last Sleep of Argyle;” Death of Sleeping Duncan;
Desdemona and Othello; Drowsiness, fatal alike to Devotion and
Instruction 1
CHAPTER II.—THE SISTERS OF OLD.
Hemp amongst the Scythians; Intoxicating vapours of the Massagetæ; the
_Nepenthes_ of Homer; the Secret of Egyptian Thebes; The Poppy of the
Ancients; Secret Poisoning of Aratus of Sicyon; The Acts of Locusta;
Death of Britannicus; The Delphic Oracle; Arabian Nights; Another
Nepenthes; Antony’s Retreat; Retreat of the Ten Thousand; Something
unknown 10
CHAPTER III.—THE “WOND’ROUS WEED.”
Legendary origin of Tobacco; Use in Hispaniola; Names for Tobacco;
First Discovery by Europeans; Introduction into France, Tuscany, Spain
and Portugal, England; Complaints against it; Smoking taught to the
Dutch; Studenten Kneipe; Tobacco in the East; Progress in England;
Opposition by James I. and other monarchs in Russia, Italy, Persia,
Turkey, Tuscany, &c.; Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth; Lovers of Tobacco;
The Distribution of the Tobacco Plant; Consumption of Tobacco; Curious
use of the Flowers; Tobacco Poison; Antidote to Arsenic; Finance
questions; Religious prohibitions; King James’s “Counterblaste.” 19
CHAPTER IV.—THE CABINET OF CLOUDLAND.
A Premier; Lord Mayor Staines; Smoking the Plague; A First Cigar;
Infant Smokers at Vizagapatam; Burmah; Female Smokers in China;
Smokers in Persia, Siam, Japan, Nicaragua, on the Amazon, in New
Guinea, Havana, Manilla; The Binua of Johore; Signor Calistro’s Story;
Cigars on the Orinoco; In Chili; The Court of Montezuma; Panama
Smokeblowers; Rocky Mountain Indians; Salvation Yeo; Yemen Smokers;
Smoking in Austria; Turkish Cloudland; Defeat of Napoleon; Curious
Legend; Old Epigram; Cost of Puffing; Yankee Calculations; Smoking in
New York; Cigar-making in the States 38
CHAPTER V.—PIPEOLOGY.
Philosophy in a pipe; St. Omer pipes; English pipes; Curious Indian
pipe; Turkish bowls; Meerschaum; Massa bowls; Amber mouth-pieces;
Origin of amber; Modern Egyptian pipes; The Shibuk; The Nargeeleh; The
Gozeh; Egoodu of the Zulus; Hubble-bubble of the Delagoans; Kaffir
bowls; Sailors’ pipes; Bamboo pipes; Winna of British Guiana; Shell
pipes; Chinese pipes; Metallic pipes; Ode to a Tobacco-pipe; Red
pipe-stone quarry; Stone pipes of Rocky Mountains; The “Calumet;”
The Sultan’s pipe-bearer; Wooden pipes; Modern pipeology; Pipes in
Australia 58
CHAPTER VI.—SNIFFING AND SNEESHIN.
The Franciscan of Sterne; Etymology of Snuff; Pouncet-boxes; The
“Niopo” of the Ottomacs; The “Curupa” of the Omaguas; Snuffing in
Iceland; Zulu Calabashes; Early Snuff-taking Apparatus; Origin of the
“Mull;” Magnificent Mull; Mongrabin Cases; Strong Snuff of the Sahara;
Plugging and Quidding; Snuff-taking Estimates; Snuff dipping; Death
in the Box; Adulterated Snuff; Snuff Scents; Substitutes for Snuff;
Lead Poison; Advice Gratis; Gold Snuff-boxes; Amber Snuff-boxes;
Boxes of Hard-shelled Seeds; Chinese Flasks; Chinese Snuffing; A
Snuff-stick; Birch-bark Boxes; Scotch Snuff-boxes; Introduction of
Snuffing; Varieties of Snuff; Hardham’s 37; Gossip on Sneezing;
Pseudo-philosophy of a Sneeze 73
CHAPTER VII.—QUID PRO QUO.
Eccentricities of Taste; Miles of Pig-tail; Tobacco and Tea
Calculations; Chewing Ladies of Paraguay; Tchuktchi Chewers; Tobacco
and Natron Quids; Taking the “Bucca;” Chewing Snuff; Quidding in
Washington; Dignified Proceedings in the Senate House; The Kou of the
Hottentots; Angelica Root; Chewing Dulse; A Quidding Monkey 94
CHAPTER VIII.—A RACE OF PRETENDERS.
Adulterated Tobacco; Substitutes; Coltsfoot; Milfoil; Rhubarb;
Bogbean; Sage; Mountain Tobacco; Cossena; Sumach; Bearberry; Maize
Husks; Pimento; Cascarilla Bark; Polygonum; Dagga; Wild Dagga; Culen;
Purphiok; Rope-smoking Chaplain; Farewell to Tobacco 104
CHAPTER IX.——“MASH ALLAH”—THE GIFT.
What is Opium? Indian Cultivation; The Nushtur; Cutting the Capsules;
Collecting the Juice; Use of the Refuse; Post; Boosa; Poppy Trash;
Pussewah and Lewah; Different Forms of Preparation; Chandu; Its
Preparation in Singapore; Singular Workman; Adulterations; Tye and
Samshing; Egyptian Conserves; Cordials; Modes of taking Opium; Immense
Doses; Opium in the “Fen Country;” The Crow and the Pigeon; Estimate
of Opium Consumption 114
CHAPTER X.—THE GATES OF PARADISE.
Paradise of the Moslems; Siamese Opium-pipes; Chinese Opium-pipe;
Smoking the Drug; Its Effects; An Old Malay; Opium Experiences; Dr.
Madden’s Trial; The Habit in China; Dr. Medhurst’s Report; Victims
at Shanghae; Percentage of Smokers; Amongst the Shikhs; Influence on
those engaged in its preparation; Chinese petition; Results in China;
Opium-eating poultry 132
CHAPTER XI.—REVELS AND REVERIES.
Mahomet’s Ascent into Heaven; Mental Effects of Opium; An
Opium-eater’s Reverie; At the Opera; Peeping into the Stores at
Hong-Kong; Opium-shops; Papan Mera; Stores in Singapore; Opium in
China; Remarks of M. Abbé Huc 149
CHAPTER XII.—PANDEMONIUM.
Running _amok_ in Java—in Singapore—in Batavia; Pains of opium;
Piranesi’s dream; Confessions of crocodile visions; Horrible dreams;
Fever phantasmagoria of “Alton Locke;” A fable; Chinese opium-smoker;
Mustapha Shatoor; The Theriakis; Heu Naetse’s opinion; Experiences of
a surgeon at Penang; Testimonies of Abbé Huc; Ho King Shan; Oppenheim;
Dr. Madden; Dr. Oxley; Dr. Little; Opium and Insurance; Another side
of the question 163
CHAPTER XIII.—OPIUM MORALS.
Examination of Criminals at Singapore; Income and expenditure;
Opium-Smoking and crime; Examination of transports; Drunkenness
compared with opium-smoking; De Quincey’s comparison; Abuse of
opium the source of poverty; The diseased poor of Singapore; Their
consumption of opium; Cooly smokers; Difficulty of discarding the
habit of opium-smoking; Opinion of Dr. Eatwell 181
CHAPTER XIV.—FALSE PROPHETS.
Preparations of opium; History of lettuce; Lactucarium; Narcotic
effects of Lettuce; Lacticiferous plants; Dutchman’s laudanum;
Syrian rue; Sterculia seeds; Beah leaves; Adulterations; Imitation
opium-balls 199
CHAPTER XV.—NEPENTHES.
Influence of climate on plants; Native home of hemp; Properties of
hemp-seed; Distribution of hemp; Scythian hemp; Antiquity of hemp;
Churrus, or hemp resin; Momeca; Gunjah; Bang, or Guaza; Majoon;
Haschisch; Dawamese; Hashasheens and Assassins; Berch; Dacha; Hemp in
India—in Egypt; Use of Stimulants 212
CHAPTER XVI.—GUNJA AT HOME.
“At home;” Influence of hemp extract; Intoxication; Annihilation of
time; Happiness; M. de Saulcey’s trial; Extraordinary delusions;
History of Genii; The Sheykh’s jinnee; Mr. Lane’s cook and the efreet;
The captain’s sheep; Mansour’s jinnee; Experiments; The impromptu
mjah; The fosterer of superstition amongst the Arabs 230
CHAPTER XVII.—HUBBLE-BUBBLE.
Dakka smoking at Ambriz; Bushmen smokers; Curious method of the
Bechuanas; Egoodu of the Zulus; Snuffling hemp; Hubble-Bubble of the
Delagoans; Haschishans of Constantine; Gunjah in India; Predilection
of “Young America” for Bang 250
CHAPTER XVIII.—SIRI AND PINANG.
The Malayan race; Areca palm; Qualities of nuts; Produce of trees;
Annual production; Preparation; How used; Local names; Chinese
consumption; Cinghalese instruments; Confirmed habits; Estimates of
consumption; The palm in Sumatra; Substitutes in the Philippines—in
Ceylon; Poetical votaries 257
CHAPTER XIX.—UNDER THE PALMS.
The betel peppers; Their cultivation; _Chenai_ of Penang; Polynesian
ava; Chewing cava at Tongataboo; Pipula moola; Gambir preparation;
“Kutt,” or cutch; Story of an Indian “kutt” maker; Areca cutch;
Statistics of the catechu and gambir trade 267
CHAPTER XX.—CHEWING THE COON.
In Burmah; The Manilla doctor; Yankee adventure; Teeth colouring
properties; Custom in Sumatra; Betel-stand of the Sultan of Moco-moco;
Of the Sultan of Sooloo; Betel a corrective of over-doses of opium;
Tagali maidens; A Tagal wedding; Making the buyos; Mahomedan
abstinence; Offer to Lady Raffles 277
CHAPTER XXI.—OUR LADY OF YONGAS.
Coca under the Incas; Origin of the name; Early history; The coca
shrub; The harvest; Estimated production; Estimated consumption and
consumers; Spanish protection; Method of using the coca; How to
enjoy it; Stimulating effects; Coca tea-parties; Confirmed coqueros;
The virtues of coca; The vices of coca; Power of allaying hunger;
Questionable nutritive properties; Devotion of Peruvians to it;
Narcotic rhododendrons 285
CHAPTER XXII.—WHITEWASH AND CLAY.
Lime-eating at Paria; Among the Guajiros; White mud of the River
Mackenzie; Edible clay of the Guanos and Ottomacs; Of Banco; Caouac
of Western Africa; Tanaampo and ampo of Java; Edible stone of New
Caledonia; Lime at Popayan; Leche de llanka of Quito; Russian stone
butter; Steinbutter and bergbutter of Germany; Bergmehl of Sweden;
Fossil infusoria; MM. Cloquet and Breschet’s experiments; Bucaro clay
of Portugal and Spain; Pahsa of La Paz; Chaco of Chiquisaca; Red earth
of Sikkim 304
CHAPTER XXIII.—PRECIOUS METALS.
Wherein metals are precious; Cumulative action of mineral poisons; Use
of corrosive sublimate; Arsenic eaters of Styria; in Canada; Benefits
claimed for it; Arseniated tobacco of China; Effects of Arsenic; Uses
of Arsenic at home 314
CHAPTER XXIV.—DATURA AND CO.
Solanaceous plants and their properties; The thorn-apple of India; The
Florispondio of Peru; Its superstitious uses; Indulgence therein in
New Granada; Effects of thorn-apple on the Jamaica soldiers; Origin of
Belladonna; Its effects as a poison; Influence on the brain; A family
beneath the spell; Henbane and its effects; Jealousy caused and cured;
Foxglove leaves 323
CHAPTER XXV.—THE EXILE OF SIBERIA.
Kamtschatdale prospects; Poisonous fungi; The amanita-eater in
Russia; Fatal effects of amanita; Description; Preparation of the
fungus; Method of indulging therein; Effects produced; Its singular
properties; “Sucking the monkey;” Narcotic symptoms of poisonous
fungi; Narcotism of puff-ball 336
CHAPTER XXVI.—ODDS AND ENDS.
Gathering the crumbs; Smoke vision of life; The Canadian herb; Legend
of St. Betsy; Two Ottoman swains; Story of Abou Gallioun; Chinese
designations; Smoke doth follow the fairest; The broken pipe of
Saladin; Clerical authority; The Angel of Sleep and the Angel of Death
346
APPENDIX.
Tables of chronology of tobacco; Of consumption of tobacco; Duties on
importation of tobacco; Profits of the French Regie; Consumption of
tobacco in Britain; Consumption of tobacco in the Austrian Empire;
Exports from the United States in 1855; Disposition of the growth of
the United States in 1840 and 1850; Exports from America in decennial
periods; Analysis of tobacco; Return of opium exports; Income of East
India Company from opium monopoly; Opium statistics of Great Britain;
Analysis of opium; Prisoners sentenced to the House of Correction, and
their opium habits; Opium consumed in the Singapore Hospital; Reports
of opium smoking in China; Professor Johnston’s estimates; Synopsis of
narcotics with their substitutes 357
THE SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP.
CHAPTER I.
+SOMEWHAT FABULOUS+.
“Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.”——COLERIDGE.
During the Decian persecution, seven inhabitants of Ephesus retired to
a cave, six were persons of some consequence, the seventh was their
servant; from hence they despatched the attendant occasionally to
purchase food for them. Decius, who like most tyrants possessed long
ears, hearing of this, ordered the mouth of the cave to be stopped up
while the fugitives were sleeping. After a lapse of some hundred years,
a part of the masonry at the mouth of the cave falling, the light
flowing in awakened them. Thinking, as Rip Van Winkle also thought,
that they had enjoyed a good night’s rest, they despatched their
servant to buy provisions. All appeared to him strange in Ephesus; and
a whimsical dialogue took place, the citizens accusing him of having
found hidden treasure, he persisting that he offered the current coin
of the realm. At length, the attention of the emperor was excited, and
he went, in company with the bishop, to visit them. They related their
story, and shortly after expired.
Thus much chroniclers narrate of the seven sleepers of Ephesus. All are
not agreed as to the place where this extraordinary event occurred.
It has been assigned also to the “mountain of the seven sleepers,”
near Tersous. It may have been claimed by the citizens of twenty other
ancient cities, for aught we can tell: Faith removes mountains. But
the number remains intact. Mahomet wrote of seven heavens—no Mahometan
takes the trouble to believe in less. The “wise men were but seven;”
there were seven poets of the age of Theocritus; seven of the daughters
of Pleione elevated to the back of Taurus; and
“There were seven pillars of gothic mould,
In Chillon’s dungeon, dark and old;”
and wherefore not _seven_ sleepers at Ephesus or Tersous; or seven
sisters of
“Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep?”
Although not to be found in Livy, or Hesiod, or Ovid, or any of the
fathers of history or fable, there is a legend of the latter _seven_,
which may be considered in the light of an abstract of title of certain
seven sisters, to be included in the list of immortal sevens who have
honoured the earth by making it their abode.
It is many thousands of years since Sleep received from her parent, as
a dowry of love, an empire, unequalled in extent by any other which
the earth ever acknowledged. Her domain embraced “the round world,
and they that dwell therein.” From pole to pole, and from ocean to
ocean, she swayed her sceptre. And it was assigned her that man should
devote one-third of his existence in paying homage at the foot of her
throne. All monarchs from Ninus to Napoleon have done her honour. All
ladies from Rhodope to Cleopatra, and from Helen to Clothilde, have
admitted her claim to ascendency. And all serfs, and all captives,
from Epictetus to Abd-el-Kader, have forgotten their bonds and their
captivity, and bowed, on an equality with kings, beneath her nod.
Sleep had seven sisters. Envious of her throne, and jealous of her
power, they complained bitterly that no heritage, and no government,
and no homage was theirs. Then they strove to deceive men, and
counterfeit the blessings which Sleep conferred, and thus to steal the
affections of her subjects from the universal monarch, and transfer
them to themselves. Herein they toiled and invented many strange
devices; and though they beguiled many, these all fell back again to
the allegiance they had sworn of old.
“O my sisters!” said Sleep, “wherefore do you strive to instil
discontent into the hearts of my subjects and breed discord in my
dominions? Know ye not, that all mortals must fain obey me, or
die? Your enchantments cannot diminish my votaries, and only serve
to increase my power. And men, who for a while are cheated of the
blessings I confer, woo me at last with increased ardour, and with
songs of gratitude fall at my feet.”
Morphina first replied—
“We know full well, proud sister, how wide is your empire, and how
great your power, but we too must reign, and our kingdoms will soon
compare with yours. Let us but share with you in ruling the world, or
we will rule it for ourselves.”
“Sisters! let us be at peace with each other. Is there not two-thirds
of the life of man free from my control? Why should you not steal from
iron-handed care enough of power to make you queens as potent, or
little less than me? My minister of dreams shall aid you by his skill,
and visions more gorgeous, and illusions more splendid, than ever
visited a mortal beneath my sway, shall attend the ecstacies of your
subjects.”
The sisters were reconciled henceforth. And anon thousands and millions
of Tartar tribes and Mongolian hordes welcomed Morphina, and blessed
her for her soothing charms and benignant rule—blessed her for her
theft from the hours of sorrow and care—blessed her for the marvels of
dreams the most extravagant, and visions the most gorgeous that ever
arose in the brain of dweller in the glowing East.
More extended became the sway of the golden-haired Virginia, until
four-fifths of the race of mortals burned incense upon her altars,
or silently proffered thank-offerings from their hearts. Curling
ever upwards from the hearth of the Briton and the forest of the
Brazilian—from the palaces of Ispahan and the wigwams of the
Missouri—from the slopes of the eternal hills and the bosom of the
mighty deep, arose the fragrant odours of her votaries, mingled with
the hum of pæans in her praise.
Beneath the shadow of palms, in the sultry regions of the sun, the dark
impetuous Gunja held her court. There did the sons of the Ganges and
the Nile, the Indus and the Niger, own her sovereignty; and there did
the swarthy Hindoo and the ebon African hold festivals in her honour.
And, though the hardy Norseman scorned her proffered offices, she
established her throne in millions of ardent and affectionate hearts.
Not far away, the red-lipped Siraboa raised her graceful standard from
the summit of a feathery palm; and the islanders of the Archipelago, in
proa and canoe, hastened to do her homage. The murderous Malay stayed
his uplifted weapon, to bless her name; and savage races, that ne’er
bowed before, fell prostrate at her feet.
Honoured by the Incas, and flattered by priests—persecuted by Spanish
conquerors, but victorious, Erythroxylina established herself in the
Bolivian Andes and the Cordilleras of Peru. With subjects the most
devoted and faithful, she has for ages received the homage of a kingdom
of enthusiastic devotees.
Two, less favoured, less beautiful, and less successful of the sisters,
pouting and repining at the good fortune that had attended the others,
secluded themselves from the rest of the world, and rushed into
voluntary exile. Datura, ruddy as Bellona, fled to the Northern Andes;
and in those mountainous solitudes collected a devoted few of frantic
followers, and established a miniature court. The pale and dwarfish
Amanita, turning her back on sunny lands and glowing skies, sought and
found a home and a refuge, a kingdom and a court, in the frozen wastes
of Siberia.
And now in peace the sisters reign, and the world is divided between
them. When care, or woe, or wan disease, steals for a time the mortal
from his allegiance to the calm and blue-eyed Sleep, then do the
sisters ply their magic arts to win him back again, and, by their
soothing influence, lull him to rest once more, and again unlock the
portals of the palace of dreams; then issues from the trembling lips
the half-heard murmur of a whispered blessing on the
SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP.[1]
In all times Sleep has been a fertile theme with poets—one on which
the best and worst has been written. All forms in heaven and in earth
have submitted themselves to become similes; and columns of adjectives
have done duty in the service since Edmund Spenser raised his House of
Sleep, where
“careless Quiet lyes,
Wrapt in eternal silence, farre from enimyes.”
No monarch has numbered so many odes in his praise, or had so many
poet laureates “all for love.” These, though not so long, are quite as
worthy as the one we heard when George III. was no longer king. Perhaps
that same little tyrant, LOVE, has come in for even a larger share
of what some would call “twaddle.” In the sunny morn of youth, these
hung upon our lips, and dwelt in our hearts, with less of doubt than
disturbs their present repose. Old age makes us sleepy, and we sing—
“O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hushed and smooth! O unconfined
Restraint, imprisoned liberty, great key
To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,
Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,
Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves
And moonlight; aye, to all the mazy world
Of silvery enchantments!”——_Endymion._
“God gave sleep to the bad,” said Sadi, “in order that the good
might be undisturbed.” Yet to good and bad sleep is alike necessary.
During the hours of wakefulness the active brain exerts its powers
without cessation or rest, and during sleep the expenditure of power
is balanced again by repose. The physical energies are exhausted by
labour, as by wakefulness are those of the mind; and if sleep comes not
to reinvigorate the mental powers, the overtaxed brain gives way, and
lapses into melancholy and madness. Men deprived of rest, as a sentence
of death, have gone from the world raving maniacs; and violent emotions
of the mind, without repose, have so acted upon the body, that, as in
the case of Marie Antoinette, Ludovico Sforza, and others, their hair
has grown white in a single night—
“As men’s have grown from sudden fears.”[2]
Mind and body alike suffer from the want of sleep, the spirit is
broken, and the fire of the ardent imagination quenched. Who can wonder
that when disease or pain has racked and tortured the frame, and
prevented a subsidence into a state so natural and necessary to man, he
should have resorted to the aid of drugs and potions, whereby to lull
his pains, and dispel the care which has banished repose, and woo back
again—
“the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe;
The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low.”
Leigh Hunt has well said, “It is a delicious moment that of being well
nestled in bed, and feeling that you shall drop gently to sleep. The
good is to come, not past; the limbs have just been tired enough to
render this remaining in one posture delightful; the labour of the
day is gone—a gentle failure of the perceptions creeps over you—the
spirit of consciousness disengages itself once more, and with slow
and hushing degrees, like a mother detaching her hand from that of a
sleeping child, the mind seems to have a balmy lid closing over it,
like the eye—it is closed—the mysterious spirit has gone to take its
airy rounds.”
It is this universal sense of the blessing of sleep which takes hold
of the mind with such a religious feeling, that the appearance of
a sleeping form, whether of childhood or age, checks our step, and
causes us to breathe softly lest we disturb their repose. We can scarce
forbear whispering, while standing before the well-known picture of the
“Last Sleep of Argyle,” lest by louder or more distinct articulation,
we should rob the poor old man of a moment of that absence of sorrow
which sleep has brought to him for the last time.
Shakespeare has made the murder of Duncan to seem the more revolting in
that it was committed while he slept. Macbeth himself must have felt
this while exclaiming—
“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murther sleep, the innocent sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’”
Had Desdemona been sent to her last account at once, when her lord
entered the room and kissed her as she slept, we feel that all our
pity for the jealous Moor would have been turned to hate, and
our detestation of him been so great that no room had been left
for execration of the villanous Iago, who _now_ seems to be the
Mephistopheles, the evil genius, of the work.
“A blessing,” says Sancho Panza, “on him who first invented sleep;
it wraps a man all round like a cloak.” But neither Sancho nor any
one else will give us a blessing if we suffer ourselves to go to
sleep in thinking over it, at the very threshold of our enterprise,
and before indulging in communion with the seven sisters of whom we
have spoken. It was a trite remark of a divine that “where drowsiness
begins, devotion ends,” and needs application as much to book writers
as to sermon preachers. Although we may not have the power to check an
occasional yawn, in which there may be as much temporal relief as in a
good sneeze, let us avoid the premonitory sinking of the upper eyelids,
by calling in the aid of Francesco Berni to release us from the spell
of sleep, and introduce us to “the sisters” of the olden time.
“Quella diceva ch’era la piu bella
Arte, il piu bel mestier che si facesse;
Il letto er’ una veste, una gonella
Ad ognun buona che se la mettesse.”
ORLAND. INNAMOR, lib. iii. cant. vii.