138 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



defence, he was found to be incapable of making any. 

 He had drugged himself with some narcotic, and 

 though bodily present in the dock, his mind was far 

 away in the land of dreams. This, when the case was 

 over, led to a conversation. In the course of it I 

 acquired some further information on the subject of 

 Indian narcotics. What I know on the matter I will 

 now very briefly relate. 



There are many varieties of these drugs. The most 

 aristocratic is opium. This, as most of my readers are 

 aware, is the juice of the cultivated poppy. In India 

 it is both eaten and smoked, and when used in modera- 

 tion I do not know that it does any particular harm. 

 The stories of the delightful visions it creates are, I 

 believe, pretty much fiction. It produces an agreeable 

 tranquillity, and pleasantly, to some degree, stimulates 

 the imagination, but nothing more. When taken in 

 excess its effects are very deleterious : the appetite 

 fails ; the body becomes emaciated, as the natives ex- 

 press it, " dries up " ; loss of memory and of intellectual 

 power next follows, death sooner or later terminating a 

 period of most wretched existence. One of the earlier 

 effects of opium, when taken habitually and in excess, 

 is to impart to the eyes a peculiar dull, glassy brilliancy, 

 and by this a confirmed opium -smoker or eater can 

 generally be distinguished. 



Next to opium, in the scale of respectability, comeS 

 the drug termed in India " bhung." This is the juice 

 of the wild hemp, and most of it is, I believe, procured 

 from the forests of the outer ranges of the Lower 

 Himalaya. Bhung is neither smoked nor eaten ; it is 



