2 20 MEDICINAL PL A N 'I S. 



those in great offices, frequently make what they call parties of 

 pleasure, merely to get dead drunk ; and after lying two or three 

 days wallowing in their liquor, return fresh and happy to their 

 office. A frequent request to such Christians as they know they 

 can trust is, to procure them the hest wine. Some principal officers, 

 both in the seraglio and Porte, have so strong a passion for it, that 

 they have invented small leathern boxes, in which they convey it 

 home without the privity of their trustiest servants : others fill large 

 leathern pipes, which are pliant, round their bodies, and so carry 

 wine clandestinely into the seraglio, at the risk perhaps of their lives. 

 When it happens that, toward the decline of life, religions scruples 

 have seized them, or that those in high offices have apprehended 

 the Grand Seignior might discover them by the odour of their 

 morning draught, they frequently change their wine to opium, 

 which is equally intoxicating, and perhaps attended with worse con- 

 sequences, both to the corporeal and mental faculties. Some still 

 continue that practice; but at present those among the great, who 

 feel scruples or fear the discovery, rather betake themselves to dis- 

 tilled strong waters, with which they are abundantly supplied from 

 Zante and Corfu. The casuistry with which they silence their 

 scruples is, that fire, which purifies all things, has, in distillation, 

 destroyed and dissipated the impure parts of the wine ; and that 

 brandy is no where expressly interdicted by Mahomet. The vice 

 of drinking wine is, however, looked upon with detestation by the 

 generality of Turks; and even the use of opium is held in great 

 contempt, as a vicious practice. When they would depreciate the 

 character of any considerable man who is known to chew it, they 

 call bim a Tiriachi, that is, "an opium eater," by which they 

 mean a person of an extravagant and irregular turn of mind. 

 [Junker. Wildenozo. Woodville. Amcenitates Academicce* 



