In The Smoke Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue IX, 21 August 1897, Page 264

In The Smoke Room

AMONGST all kinds and conditions of men to-day the devotee of the fragrant weed is to be found, but it may be interesting to the English smokers to know some of the strange ways in which the narcotic weed is employed by other nations. This, then, shall be the writer’s apology for the present article. The Spaniards are probably the most clever smokers on the face of the earth. The Spaniard will take a long pull at his favourite cigarette, inhale the smoke, take up a wine bottle, pour half a pint down his throat, converse in a most easy and natural manner for several minutes, and then exhale the smoke in a steady cloud while a look of complacent delight illumines his dnsky face.

In Paraguay the men smoke and the wpmen chew tobacco. When a traveller enters a house there the host greets him first with a pipe of lighted tobacco—lndian fashion—which is smoked in silence. Then the lady pf the house emerges from her boudoir, laden in silk and satin of the rainbow persuasion, with a huge plug of tobacco reposing inside her damask cheek. She greets the visitor with an ungainly bob, removes the very palpable plug from her mouth, and presents the latter to the startled visitor for a kiss, this being the cheerful custom of that charming clime. These preliminaries being over, the men resume* their huge pipes, the lady her palpable plug, and all these things are lovely. The mountaineers of the higher Himalayas have a very curious fashion of their own of enjoying the fragrant weed. They bore tiny tunnels in the frozen snow. At one end of the snow tunnel they place a heap of tobacco with a piece of smouldering charcoal, while at the opposite end they lie prone upon the ground with their mouths to the aperture, from which they inhale the smoke of the glowing narcotic until they roll over in a delicious stupor of semi-intoxication. The Negritos of Tozon are most inveterate smokers. Strange to say, they reverse the usual order of things by placing the lighted end of the cigar in their mouths. They scarcely ever remove the cigar from their lips except to partake of a meal. Their passion for smoking is so strong that they will readily barter their wives for tobacco if the necessity presents itself. The dusky inhabitants of Deschsirez mix their tobacco with natron, pepper and water, so as to make a kind of pudding. This they call ‘ bucha.’ They take a piece of this incongruous mess and place it in their mouths to chew, and after having thus extracted some of the more potent elements the remainder is dried and smoked through a rude clay pipe.

As practical consumers ’ of the weed, in a literal and absolute sense, there are no people who can excel, or even equal, the hardy Esquimaux. These remarkable folk do not believe in wasting any portion of the weed, so they first smoke the tobacco, next devour the ashes and then actually drink the acrid nicotine depost from their pipe, and they regard it as a luxury. A recent traveller in their frigid clime vouches for the truth of this statement, and tells how he was besieged by scores of Esquimaux, who begged him to give them his pipes to clean out that they might revel in the luxury of a draught of nicotine oil.

In striking contrast to the foregoing are the smokers of Japan, who are probably the most temperate and cleanly of all smokers. The rudest coolie or the coarsest farm labourer, equally with the lady of rank and the Minister of State, are content with the ‘ kissra,’ a small, neat pipe, the bowl of which is often smaller than a lady’s thimble. Into this diminutive receptacle is placed a tinv ball of the finest cut leaf tobacco, which is lighted with a piece of charcoal. From this the smoker will take only one or two long draws, after which the glowing ball is dug out of its bowl and thrown away, a fresh piece being inserted in its place.

The inhabitants of the Cook Peninsula, Australia, are passionate smokers. Their pipes are made of bamboo three feet in length and four inches in diameter. They are fond of forming smoking parties, at which they smoke after the manner of some of the Indian tribes. One huge pipe is used by the whole company, each of which takes a long pull and hands it to his neighbour. Germany has passed a wise law to guard against poisoning. All drugs intended for internal use must in that country be put up in round bottles, and those which are only used externally must be placed in hexagonal bottles.