HOW OPIUM IS SMOKED.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3221, 26 October 1881, Page 4

HOW OPIUM IS SMOKED.

Opium in its raw state would burn badly. To prepare it for smoking, it is dissolved by boiling it in a little water, commonly in & co, ,er vessel, till it becomes a thick syrup. This is strained through cloth or paper, and boiled again until it is brought by evaporation to the strength of strong essence. It is therefore really the aqueous extract of opium which the smoker uses. This is usually

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The stem of the

•:.•>■ "f Vnr! wool, -ffifl". or motrt 1 . nn<-l !• '-.'l't bo taken for an Fnalish ruW. Mhnnt lon.. m\<l an fru-h ; n rHampter. The enrthwarr or porcelain bowl screws off and on about three inches from the end. Tliis needs continual scraping and cleaning, as the aperture through winch the opium is inhaled is only about the size of a pin's head. The quantity of opium intended to be smoked at a time varies from 20 to 100 grains. It is dipped carefully out of a smaL gallipot, laid on a leaf, caught upon the pointed end of a short wire kept for the purpose, and applied to the flame of a lamp. It at once expands into a bubble, and then with dexterity obtained only by constant practice it is rolled on the pipe head until it becomes a small lump of the shape and size of half an orange pip, and about as hard as wax. It is then placed over the hole in the head of the pipe, through -which, like a small chimney, the flame of the lamp is drawn into the bowl, converting the opium in its passage to bine Bi-cke, which by long continued whiffs is inspired, and, without the removal of the pipe from the mouth, is respired through the nostrils. Some persons unaccustomed to the practice can take two or three pipes without any other unpleasant feeling than a harshness in the throat, but to many the effects of erra so small a quantity would bo injurious. Mons. Liberman'a 'Fmuours d'Opium en Chine,' and M. C. Cooke's ' Seven Sisters of Sleep,' describe the preparation and smoking of opium as well as ti.o dreadful results of habitual indulgence in the habit. Among the Malays and Sumatrans the leaf of tho tornbal"', shred fine, is mixed with the prepared opium in a quantity sufficient to absorb the vvhole; and it is afterwards made into small pills,

b. about the size of a pea. One of these being put into the small tube thtft projects from the side of an opium pipe, t.hnt tube is applied to a lamp, and the pill being lighted, is consumed at one whiff or inflation of the lungs, attended with a whistling noise. The Sumatrans, like the Chinese, never £mit the smokfi by the mouth, but usually through theno3tr;lß, and some times through the ears and at the earners of the eyes.— Oracle.