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so accustomed to this intoxicating drug, that half the quantity 

 which they take for recreation, would compose an European into 

 the sleep of death. On the Indian it seems to produce the most 

 delightful reveries, transports him in idea to elysium, and fascinates 

 him with the joys of paradise; makes him gay, lively, and good 

 humoured, and his imagination wantons in voluptuous pleasures. 

 These dreams of rapture soon terminate, but the fatal consequences 

 of the enervating drug are permanent; it soon undermines the con- 

 stitution, debilitates the system, and brings on premature old-age. 

 Taken before a battle it inspires temporary courage, or rather a 

 dreadful phrenzy; among apparent friends its effects are often 

 fatal, by causing those who think themselves injured by their supe- 

 riors, to speak and act under its influence with an unguarded 

 freedom, which is afterwards recollected and punished: there are 

 many instances of officers, thus intoxicated, upbraiding an oppres- 

 sive despot when surrounded by his courtiers in full durbar. 



The principal diversions of the nabob and his courtiers were 

 hawking and hunting, for which the Cam bay districts afford fine 

 sport; the game of chess was also very fashionable, but smoking 

 the hooka, chewing betel, regaling with opium, and attending to 

 the songs and dances of the courtezans, engrossed most of their 

 time, not dedicated to business or the retirement of the haram; 

 there they pass many hours, and there, under the most oppressive 

 government, they remain unmolested: the severest despot respecls 

 the female apartment, where none but a husband enters, where a 

 brother does not even visit his married sister. 



The Asiatics in general prefer a sedentary life, and are sur- 

 prised to see a European walk for exercise or pleasure; much 



