340 NAHCOTIC USAGES AND SUPEESTITIONS 



neighbourhood produces. Most of them, however, manage to raise a little 

 tobacco, for which they have a perfect mania, and which they value nearly as 

 much as the necessaries of life. 



" They also cultivate 'dacka,' or hemp, not as with us, for its fibre, but for the 

 sake of the young leaves and seeds, which they use as a substitute for tobacco, 

 and which is of the most intoxicating and injurious character. It not un frequently 

 happens, indeed, that those who indulge too freely in the use of this plant are 

 affected by disease of the brain. 



<; The manner in which the Hill-Damaras smoke is widely different from Hindu, 

 Mussulman, or Christian. Instead of simply inhaling the smoke, and then imme- 

 diately letting it escape, either by the mouth or nostril, they swallow it deliber- 

 ately. The process is too singular to be passed over without notice. A small 

 quantity of water is put into a large horn, — usually of a Koodoo, — three or four 

 feet long. A short clay pipe, filled either with tobacco ot dacka, is then introduced, 

 and fixed vertically into the side, near the extremity of the narrow end, com- 

 municating with the interior by means of a small aperture. This being done, the 

 party present place themselves in a circle, observing deep silence ; and with open 

 mouths, and eyes glistening with delight, they anxiously abide their turn. The 

 chief man usually has the honor of enjoying the first pull at the pipe. From the 

 moment that the orifice of the horn is applied to his lips he seems to lose all 

 consciousness of everything around him, and becomes entirely absorbed in the 

 enjoyment. As little or no smoke escapes from his mouth, the effect is soon 

 sufficiently apparent. His features become contorted, his eye glassy and vacant, 

 his mouth covered with froth, his whole body convulsed, and in a few seconds he 

 is prostrate on the ground. A little water is then thrown over his body, proceeding 

 not unfrequently from the mouth of a friend; his hair is violently pulled, or his 

 head unceremoniously thumped with the hand. These somewhat disagreeable 

 applications usually have the effect of restoring him to himself in a few minutes. 

 Gases, however, have been known where the people have died on the spot, from 

 overcharging their stomachs with the poisonous fumes. The Ovaoherero use 

 tobacco in a similar manner, with this difference only, that they inhale the smoke 

 simply through short clay pipes, without using water to cool it, which of course 

 makes it all the more dangerous." 



It would seem, alike from the American and the African modes of 

 using the tohacco or other narcotics in smoking, and no less so from 

 the Chinese and Malay employment of opium in a similar manner, 

 that the primitive use of such among all races has been attended 

 with gross intemperance. The inference, therefore, is probably not 

 an illegitimate one, which ascribes the small size of the oldest 

 British tobacco pipes, not to the economy or moderation of Eliza- 

 bethan and Jacobite smokers, but rather to their practising the 

 nicotian art in close imitation of its wild forest originators. This 

 is nowhere more curiously and discriminatingly indicated than in its 

 prescription for the cure of the mental disorder treated of by the 

 quaint author of " The Anatomy of Melancholy," himself evidently 

 a lover of the weed : " Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, 



