The hookah, with all its pomps and grandeurs,
is fast disappearing in India with that
race of European nabobs whose superfluity of
wealth, yellow complexions, and nonchalant
habits, made them, two generations ago, "the
observed of all observers." In my visit to India,
I scarcely found a hookah-smoker among our
countrymen. Officials seemed too much occupied
with public cares, non-officials with money-making,
the great business of life, and both seemed
to seek amusements and enjoyments which
demanded less of elaboration and display. The
hookah is essentially unsocial, while the whole
'' tide of tendency" in India, is to introduce
more of the European family life into the field
of every-day existence. The increasing importation
of ladies cements more and more the
ranks that were formerly separated. The rapidity
and facility of communication, both with the
mother country and the interior, not only break
down the barriers which separated communities
and individuals from one another, but have helped
to mould men and women to a common type,
and to destroy those peculiarities and independences
which grow out of distance and isolation.
The simplicity of the cheroot has superseded the
complications of the hookah.

The Manilla cheroot is generally preferred in
India to the Havannah cigar, and as it is idle to
be disputing about tastes, the partisans of the
two rivals may be allowed to settle their
differences. But India itself is now producing
tobacco which some—but not many—proclaim to
be equal to either the Philippine or the Cuban
weed. Free trade, extending intercourse, will,
no doubt, in the course of time, modify and alter
many of our habits and fancies, bringing into use
the productions of regions now unknown to
commerce or to fame, but the world is vastly wide
and most imperfectly explored. Man is but too
little acquainted with man and with the capabilities
of capital, soil, labour and science. Every
day extends the field of observation and of
intercourse, every day rewards more and more the
inquirer and the adventurer. We are but on
the threshold of a more promising futurity.

A propos of tobacco grave reflections may seem
out of place, but it would not be difficult to
show that tobacco has done its work and lent
its aid in the progress of civilisation. That
is not our present purpose, however. Of all
stimulating inhalations, those of the hhashish of
the Arabs, or bang of the Hindoos, is the most
exciting, the most maddening. Hemp-seed is
the material of this potent stimulant. It will
drive the Malay to run a muck, dealing with
his kris violence and death around him. Under
its influence, all the latent savagery of his
nature breaks out: he clinches his teeth, and rolls
his reddened eyes, fiercely grasps and
unsheathes his weapon—and away, away,
victimising friends and foes. ln the villages of Java
pronged weapons are seen, by which the madman
is kept at a distance, and secured till the
authority arrives to arrest him. It is the forked
branch of a tree whose sharp and strong thorns
grow backward, and fix themselves in the flesh
of the person who is held within the horns of
the prong. The attempt to escape only drives
the thorns deeper into the sides, and as the
handle is from six to eight feet long, the
captared Malay cannot reach his captors, who
pinion him to the ground, or against the
nearest wall.

Who can account for the peculiar form in
which Malayan passion is wont to exhibit itself
—this murderous onslaught upon everybody that
stands in the way of the frenzied madman?
—his blind, headlong, indiscriminating ferocity?
The most excited drunkard who commits an act
of violence is ordinarily satiated with that
single act, but the muck-driven Malay becomes
more and more savage in his assaults, and
pursues his frightful career until he sinks from
exhaustion. Though the hhashish is ordinarily the
immediate mover of his terrible propensity,
there are many other influences which awaken
the dormant passions of his excitable nature.
First, jealousy; the belief that his hareem has
been violated; or revenge for some real or
supposed injustice; or want, when visiting
him with its extremest pressure; or hatred,
which has so many sources for its origin, and
so many elements from which it is fed and
fostered. While a belief in the irresistible
power of destiny— the impossibility of resisting
that which is to be— has hold of the Malayan's
mind, the distinction between right and wrong
will not be very perceptible. "It was my doom;
who could prevent it?" is the answer to all
reproaches: the justification or the palliation
of every muiderous deed.

Though these lucubrations are more specially
confined to remote and Oriental wanderings,
we can hardly refrain from a glance or
two at neighbouring nations, where recollections
associated with our subject naturally float
into the mind. What changes the use of tobacco
has introduced into our modes of life since the
pedantic Caledonian king blew his counterblast,
may be left for others to observe and to describe.*
France is too adjacent and too frequently visited
to demand notice here, and our Transatlantic
brethren exhibit themselves among us in all their
various native characteristics, and in abundant
variety. A few points of prominence, on reference
to our subject matter, it may not be superfluous to
notice.

The meerschaum and the porcelain bowl find
favour witli the German, and the rivalry between
their respective merits affords a constant topic
of controversy among the burghers or youths
of the universities. The possession and becoming
use of the pipe, mark the transition from youth
to manhood, and the rauchen rank being
assumed, the pipe, which is its recognised emblem

* One of the best epigrams with which I am
acquainted, is that preserved by Racine, contrasting
the will of Queen James with that of her predecessor
King Elizabeth:

"Quand Elisabeth fut roi,
L' Anglais fut d'Espagne l'effroi;
Maintenant, devise et caquette,
Régie par la Reine Jacquette."