CHAPTERVII.

Old English Pipes.

"The early period at which tobacco pipes were first manufactured, is established by the fact that the incorporation of the craft of tobacco-pipe makers took place on the 5th of October, 1619. Their privileges extending through the cities of London and Westminster, the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales. They have a Master, four Wardens, and about twenty-four Assistants. They were first incorporated by King James in his seventeenth year, confirmed again by King Charles I., and lastly on the twenty-ninth of April in the fifteenth year of King Charles II., in all the privileges of their aforesaid charters."The London Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers was incorporated in the reign of Charles II (1663); it had no hall and no livery but was governed by a Master two wardens, and eighteen assistants. The first pipes used in the British Islands were made of silver while 'ordinary ones' were made of a walnut shell and a straw. Afterwards appeared the more common clay pipes in various forms and which are in use at the present time."

"The London Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers was incorporated in the reign of Charles II (1663); it had no hall and no livery but was governed by a Master two wardens, and eighteen assistants. The first pipes used in the British Islands were made of silver while 'ordinary ones' were made of a walnut shell and a straw. Afterwards appeared the more common clay pipes in various forms and which are in use at the present time."

During the reign of Anne and George I. the pipes assumed a different form and greater length so long were the stems of some of them that they were called yards of clay. The French pipe is one of the finest manufactured and is made of a fine red clay especially those made by Fiolet of St. Omer, one of the best designers of pipes. Many of these like German pipes are made of porcelain, adorned with portraitsand landscapes. Others are made of rare kinds of wood turned in the lathe or artistically carved, and lined with clay to resist the action of fire.

The French also make pipes of agate, amber, crystal, carnelian and ivory, as well as the various kinds of pure or mixed metals. Many of the French and German pipes while they are beautiful in design and made of the most costly materials are often exceedingly grotesque, representing often the most ludicrous scenes and all possible attitudes. Many of them have been termed as satirical pipes taking off some public charactera laNast.

Fairholt says of satirical pipes:

"England has occasioned the production of one satirical pipe for sale among ourselves. The late Duke of Wellington toward the close of his life, took a strong dislike to the use of tobacco in the army, and made some ineffectual attempts to suppress it. Benda, a wholesale pipe importer in the city employed Dumeril, of St. Omer, to commemorate the event, and the result was a pipe head, in which a subaltern, pipe in hand, quietly 'takes a sight' at the great commander who is caricatured after a fashion that must have made the work a real pleasure to a Frenchman."

Many of the French pipes are exceedingly quaint representing all manner of comical scenes. One is formed like a steam-engine the smoke passing through the funnel. Another is fashioned after a potato or a turnip while others often represent some military subjects. In England and Ireland also pipes of a whimsical form are common.

French Pipes.[Back to Contents]

IIn Russia and Denmark as also in Norway and Sweden the pipes are more simple and are principally formed of wood sometimes tipped with copper but usually of inferior material and work when compared with French and German pipes. The German pipes considered as works of art are doubtless the finest made. Many are made of meerschaum (sea foam). This material is found in various parts of Asia Minor. When first obtained it is capable of forming a lather like soap, and is used by the Tartars for washing purposes. The Turks use it for pipes which are made in the same way that pottery is and afterwards soaked in wax and is then ready for smoking. It heats slowly and is capable of greater absorption than any other material used in pipe making. To properly color a meerschaum is now considered as one of the fine arts and when completed is considered quite a triumph. When the pipe takes on a rich deep brown tint it is considered a valuable pipe and is watched and guarded as a most valuable treasure.

In Russia and Denmark as also in Norway and Sweden the pipes are more simple and are principally formed of wood sometimes tipped with copper but usually of inferior material and work when compared with French and German pipes. The German pipes considered as works of art are doubtless the finest made. Many are made of meerschaum (sea foam). This material is found in various parts of Asia Minor. When first obtained it is capable of forming a lather like soap, and is used by the Tartars for washing purposes. The Turks use it for pipes which are made in the same way that pottery is and afterwards soaked in wax and is then ready for smoking. It heats slowly and is capable of greater absorption than any other material used in pipe making. To properly color a meerschaum is now considered as one of the fine arts and when completed is considered quite a triumph. When the pipe takes on a rich deep brown tint it is considered a valuable pipe and is watched and guarded as a most valuable treasure.

M. Ziegler thus describes the source whence the considerable annual supply of meerschaum for meerschaum pipes is derived:

"Large quantities of this mineral so highly esteemed by smokers, comes from Hrubschitz and Oslawan in Austrian Moravia where it is found embedded between thick strata of serpentine rock. It is also found in Spain at Esconshe, Vallecas and Toledo; the best however comes from Asia Minor. The chief places are the celebrated meerschaummines from six to eight miles southeast of Eskis chehr, on the river Pursak chief tributary to the river Sagarius. They were known to Xenophon, and are now worked principally by Armenian Christians, who sink narrow pits, to the beds of this mineral, and work the sides out until water or imminent danger drives them away to try another place. Some meerschaum comes from Brussa, and in 1869 over 3,000 boxes of raw material were imported from Asia Minor at Trieste, with 345,000 florins. The pipe manufacture and carving is principally carried on in Vienna and in Rhula, Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The commercial value of meerschaum carving at these places may be estimated at $2,000,000 annually. However very large quantities of them are not made from genuine but artificial material. The waste from these carvings is ground to a very fine powder, and then boiled with linseed oil and alum. When this mixture has sufficient cohesion, it is cast in molds and carefully dried and carved, as if these blocks of mineral had been natural. It is said that about one-half of all pipes now sold are made from artificial meerschaum. Meerschaum is one of the lightest of minerals and it is said that in Italy bricks have been made of it so light that they would float on the top of the water. Some pipes (doubtless owing to the quality of meerschaum) take on more color in a given time than others this is owing in a great measure however to the thickness of the bowl."

Pipe-colorers, who go around coloring pipes or meerschaums, pride themselves on the rapidity with which they are enabled to color a pipe. The following, on "Pipe Colorers," is from "The Tobacco Plant":

Pipe Colorer.

"There are men who pride themselves upon the skill with which they are able to color the pipes they smoke. Some of these are amateurs, who smoke Tobacco only with the view of gratifying that taste for color which is satisfied when a bowl of clay or meerschaum is sufficiently yellowed, browned, or blacked. There are men who care nothing for Tobacco of itself, and would be much more easily and rationally pleased were they to set their pipes upon an easel and paint them with oils and camel's-hair. Others of the class are professional colorers, who hire themselves to pipe-sellers or connoisseurs by the week, or day, or hour, to smoke so many ounces or pounds of strong Tobacco through such and such pipes in such and such a time, with the view of causing suchand such stains of Tobacco-juice to make themselves visible on the bowls or stems of those specified pipes. These are mostly old, well-seasoned smokers, to whose existence the weed has become essential; who smoke their own old pipes, which lack artistic coloring, in the intervals when they lay aside the pipes they are employed to color. Another and much smaller section of the class are those who smoke for smoking's sake, and yet are weak enough to nurse some special pipes for show. To such it is a joy to say, when friends are gathered at the festive board 'Look! is not that well colored? I colored it myself.' In such an age as this, when the learned cannot tell us which of our various branches of knowledge and inquiry are sciences and which are not, it may not seem a great anomaly that this pipe-coloring should, by some, be called 'an art.' Nor is it, when we think that there is such an 'art' as blacking shoes; and when we must perforce admit that he who, barber fashion, cuts our hair—and he who, cook-wise, broils the kidney for our mid-day dinner—is an artist. We have not come as yet to give this title to the weaver who watches the loom that weaves our stockings, or to the hammer-man who beats the red-hot horse-shoe on the anvil in a smithy; but even there we designate 'artisans,' and 'artists' may come next. So, hey! for the art of coloring pipes!

"It may not be denied that there is beauty in a well-colored meerschaum; but in the admission lies the contradiction of Keats' well-known line—

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."

For, your meerschaum is a fragile thing, and eminently frangible. This present writer once did see four beauties break within a single moon. And when they break, what previous joy of coloring can over-top the sorrow of their dire destruction? It is a singular difficulty in the way of those who most desire to beautify utility or utilize the beautiful, orshow that beauty is most lovely when made practical, that these artistic colorers of pipes are always those who make least use of Tobacco, save for the immediate purpose of obtaining the clay in which it is smoked. Ask such an artist why he smokes, and he will scarcely tell you. His best reason certainly will be, that others smoke, and, as a custom, it becomes him. And when you find an ardent smoker—one who smokes because he likes Tobacco for itself, or finds it useful—who spends his time in tinting pipes, you will have found arara avis, or a monstrosity. Apart from taste, there are some practical objections to this custom of coloring pipes. Smoking, to be worthy, should be free and unrestrained; while he who colors his pipe is tied by system and confined to rule."A pipe to be enjoyable, should be its master's slave; but he who keeps a 'well-colored' pipe is slave thereto. He cannot smoke it as, or when, or where he will. He must not smoke it in a draught, or near a fire; he must not lay it down, or finger it; he must not puff too fast, nor yet too slow. In short, he is the creature of this 'Joss'—this home-made deity—to which he bows down and worships. The pipe-colorers are the Sabbatarians of smoking. Whereas, the pipe was made for man, they treat man as made for the pipe. And thus, as in all cases where the cart is expected to draw the horse, the economy of nature is reversed, and mischief is evolved."

"A pipe to be enjoyable, should be its master's slave; but he who keeps a 'well-colored' pipe is slave thereto. He cannot smoke it as, or when, or where he will. He must not smoke it in a draught, or near a fire; he must not lay it down, or finger it; he must not puff too fast, nor yet too slow. In short, he is the creature of this 'Joss'—this home-made deity—to which he bows down and worships. The pipe-colorers are the Sabbatarians of smoking. Whereas, the pipe was made for man, they treat man as made for the pipe. And thus, as in all cases where the cart is expected to draw the horse, the economy of nature is reversed, and mischief is evolved."

German Porcelain Pipes.

Dibdin, in his "Tour in France and Germany," says of Vienna, that it is a city of smokers,—"a good Austrian thinks he can never pay too much for a good pipe." Many of the Germans use a kind of pipe carved from the root of the dwarf oak; wooden pipes of a similar kind are made of brier root, and are very common, as are also those made from maple and sweet-brier. One of the favorite pipes used by Germans is the porcelain pipe, which consists of a double bowl—the upper one containing the tobacco, which fits into another portion of the pipe, allowing the oil to drain into the lower bowl, which may be removed and the pipe cleaned. The bowls aresometimes painted beautifully, representing a variety of subjects, and in no way inferior to the painted porcelain for the table.

The Dutch are famous smokers and are constantly "pulling at the pipe." They use those with long, straight stems, and both their clay and porcelain pipes are of the finest form and finish. Irving, in "The History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty," has given a good description of the smoking powers of the Dutch. Speaking of his grandfather's love for the weed, he says:

"My great-grandfather, by the mother's side, Hermanns Van Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone church at Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred yards to your left, after your turn from the Boomkeys; and which is so conveniently constructed that all the zealous Christians of Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon there to any other church in the city. My great-grandfather, I say, when employed to build that famous church, did, in the first place, send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then, having purchased a new spitting-box and a hundred weight of the best Virginia, he sat himself down and did nothing for the space of three months but smoke most laboriously."Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on foot, and voyaging in the Trekschuit, from Rotterdam to Amsterdam—to Delft—to Hærlem—to Leyden—to the Hague—knocking his head and breaking his pipe against every church in his road. Then did he advance gradually nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built. Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it and round it, contemplating it, first from one point of view, and then from another,—now would he be paddled by it on the canal—now would he peep at it through a telescope from the other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird's-eye glance at it from the top of one of those gigantic windmills which protect the gates of the city."The good folks of the place were on the tip-toe of expectation and impatience. Notwithstanding all the turmoil of my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be brought into the world, but that its great projector would liedown and die in labor of the mighty plan he had conceived. At length, having occupied twelve good months in puffing and paddling, and talking and walking,—having traveled over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France and Germany,—having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine pipes and three hundred weight of the best Virginia tobacco,—my great-grandfather gathered together all that knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer attending to anybody's business sooner than their own, and having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches he advanced sturdily up and laid the corner-stone of the church, in the presence of the whole multitude,—just at the commencement of the thirteenth month."

"Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on foot, and voyaging in the Trekschuit, from Rotterdam to Amsterdam—to Delft—to Hærlem—to Leyden—to the Hague—knocking his head and breaking his pipe against every church in his road. Then did he advance gradually nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built. Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it and round it, contemplating it, first from one point of view, and then from another,—now would he be paddled by it on the canal—now would he peep at it through a telescope from the other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird's-eye glance at it from the top of one of those gigantic windmills which protect the gates of the city.

"The good folks of the place were on the tip-toe of expectation and impatience. Notwithstanding all the turmoil of my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be brought into the world, but that its great projector would liedown and die in labor of the mighty plan he had conceived. At length, having occupied twelve good months in puffing and paddling, and talking and walking,—having traveled over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France and Germany,—having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine pipes and three hundred weight of the best Virginia tobacco,—my great-grandfather gathered together all that knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer attending to anybody's business sooner than their own, and having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches he advanced sturdily up and laid the corner-stone of the church, in the presence of the whole multitude,—just at the commencement of the thirteenth month."

He also alludes to Hudson whom he says was:

"A seafaring man of renown, who had learned to smoke tobacco under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been the first to introduce it into Holland, which gained him much popularity in that country, and caused him to find great favor in their High Mightinesses, the lords and states general, and also of the honorable West India Company. He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe. * * * As chief mate and favorite companion, the commander chose Master Robert Juet, of Limehouse, in England. By some his name has been spelled Chewit, ascribed to the circumstance of his having been the first man that ever chewed tobacco. * * * * Under every misfortune he comforted himself with a quid of tobacco, and the truly philosophical maxim, 'that it will be all the same a hundred years hence!'"

Further on he alludes to the attempt to subjugate New Amsterdam to the British crown and the effect produced by the burghers lighting their pipes.

"When" he says "Captain Argol's vessel hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized with such a panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing vehemence, insomuch that they quickly raised a cloud, which, combining with the surrounding woods and marshes, completely enveloped and concealed their beloved village; and overhung the fair regions of Pavonia:—so that the terrible Captain Argol passed on, totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay snugly couched in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapor."

A Persian Water Pipe.

The Persians[52]are said to be the first to invent the mode of drawing tobacco smoke through water thereby cooling it before inhaling it. Fairholt says "it is to smoking what ice is to Champagne." TheLondon Reviewgives the following description of pipes and smoking apparatus:

"The hookah of India is the most splendid and glittering of all pipes; it is a large affair, on account of the arrangements for causing the smoke to pass through water before it reaches the lips of the smoker, as a means of rendering it cooler and of extracting from it much of its rank and disagreeable flavor."On the top of an air-tight vessel, half filled with water, is a bowl containing tobacco; a small tube descends from the bowl into the water, and a flexible pipe, one end of which is between the lips of the smoker, is inserted at the other end into the vessel, above the level of the water. Such being the adjustment, the philosophy of the inhalation may be easily understood. The smoker sucks the air out of the vessel, and makes a partial vacuum; the external air, pressing on the burning tobacco, drives the smoke through the small tube into the water beneath; purified from some of its rank qualities, the smoke bubbles up into the vacant part of the vessel above the water, and passes through the flexible pipe to the smoker's mouth. Sometimes the affair is made still more luxurious by substituting rose-water for waterpur et simple. The tube is so long and flexible that the smoker may sit (or squat) at a small or great distance from the vessel containing the water. In the courts of princes and wealthy natives the vessels and tubes are lavishly adorned with precious metals. One mode of showing hospitality in theEast is to place a hookah in the center of the apartment, range the guests around, and let all have a whiff of the pipe in turn; but in more luxurious establishments a separate hookah is placed before each guest. Some of the Egyptians use a form of hookah called the narghile or nargeeleh—so named because the water is contained in the shell of a cocoanut of which the Arabic name is nargeeleh. Another kind, having a glass vessel, is called the sheshee—having, like the other, a very long tube. Only the choicest tobacco is used with the hookah and nargeeleh; it is grown in Persia."Before it is used, the tobacco is washed several times, and put damp into the pipe-bowl, two or three pieces of live charcoal are put on the top. The moisture gives mildness to the tobacco, but renders inhalation so difficult that weak lungs are unfitted to bear it. The dry tobacco preferred by the Persians does not involve so much difficulty in 'blowing a cloud.'"

"On the top of an air-tight vessel, half filled with water, is a bowl containing tobacco; a small tube descends from the bowl into the water, and a flexible pipe, one end of which is between the lips of the smoker, is inserted at the other end into the vessel, above the level of the water. Such being the adjustment, the philosophy of the inhalation may be easily understood. The smoker sucks the air out of the vessel, and makes a partial vacuum; the external air, pressing on the burning tobacco, drives the smoke through the small tube into the water beneath; purified from some of its rank qualities, the smoke bubbles up into the vacant part of the vessel above the water, and passes through the flexible pipe to the smoker's mouth. Sometimes the affair is made still more luxurious by substituting rose-water for waterpur et simple. The tube is so long and flexible that the smoker may sit (or squat) at a small or great distance from the vessel containing the water. In the courts of princes and wealthy natives the vessels and tubes are lavishly adorned with precious metals. One mode of showing hospitality in theEast is to place a hookah in the center of the apartment, range the guests around, and let all have a whiff of the pipe in turn; but in more luxurious establishments a separate hookah is placed before each guest. Some of the Egyptians use a form of hookah called the narghile or nargeeleh—so named because the water is contained in the shell of a cocoanut of which the Arabic name is nargeeleh. Another kind, having a glass vessel, is called the sheshee—having, like the other, a very long tube. Only the choicest tobacco is used with the hookah and nargeeleh; it is grown in Persia.

"Before it is used, the tobacco is washed several times, and put damp into the pipe-bowl, two or three pieces of live charcoal are put on the top. The moisture gives mildness to the tobacco, but renders inhalation so difficult that weak lungs are unfitted to bear it. The dry tobacco preferred by the Persians does not involve so much difficulty in 'blowing a cloud.'"

"The stiff-stemmed Turkish pipes, quite different from the flexible tube of the hookah and narghile, are of two kinds, the kablioun or long pipe, and the chibouque or short pipe. Some of the stems of the kablioun, made of cherry tree, jasmine, wild plum, and ebony, are five feet in length, and are bored with a kind of gimlet. The workman, placing the gimlet above the long, slender branchlet of wood, bores half the length, and then reverses the position to operate upon the other half. The wild cherry tree wood, which is the most frequently employed, is seldom free from defects in the bark, and some skill is exercised in so repairing these defective places that the mending shall be invisible."

The tubes or pipe-bowls used with these stems are mostly a combination of two substances—the red clay of Nish and the white earth of Rustchuk; they are graceful in form and sometimes decorated with gilding. It is characteristic of some of the Turks that they estimate the duration of a journey, and with it the distance traveled, by the number of pipes smoked, a particular size of pipe-bowl being understood. Dodwell, in his "Tour through Greece," says that

"a Turk is generally very clean in his smoking apparatus, having a small tin dish laid on the carpet of his apartment, on which the bowl of the pipe can rest, to prevent the tobacco fromburning or soiling the carpet. The tubes of the kabliouns are often as much as seven or eight feet long. Some of the gardens of Turkey and Greece contain jasmine trees purposely cultivated to produce straight stems for these pipes."

Of those Turkish pipes which are used in Egypt, Mr. Lane, after mentioning the narghile and the chibouque or "shibuk," says:—

"The most common kind used in Egypt is made of wood called garmashak (I believe it is maple). The greater part of the stick, from the mouth-piece to three-fourths of its length, is covered with silk, which is confined at each extremity by gold thread, often intertwined with colored silks, or by a tube of gilt or silver; and at the lower extremity of the covering is a tassel of silk. The covering was originally designed to be moistened with water in order to cool the pipe, and consequently the smoke by evaporation; but this is only done when the pipe is old or not handsome. These stick pipes are used by many persons, particularly in winter; in summer the smoke is not so cool from them as from the kind before mentioned. The bowl is of baked earth, colored red or brown."

Before passing to the subject of the costly mouth-pieces of Oriental pipes, we must say a few words concerning the extraordinary care bestowed on some kinds of plain wood sticks for stems or tubes. Cherry-tree stems, under the name of agriots, constitute a specialty of Austrian manufacture. The fragrant cherry (prunus makaleb) is a native of that country; and the young trees are cultivated with special reference to this application. They are all raised from seed. The seedlings, when two years old, are planted in small pots, one in each; as they grow, every tendency to branching is choked by removing the bud; and as they increase in size from year to year, they are shifted into larger pots or into boxes. Great care is taken to turn them round daily, so that every part shall be equally exposed to sunshine. When the plants have attained a sufficient height they are allowed to form a small bushy head; but the daily care is continued until the stems grow to a proper thickness. They are thentaken out of the ground, the roots and branches removed, and the stem bored through after being seasoned for some time. The care shown in rearing insures a perfect straightness of stem, and an equable diameter of about an inch or an inch and a half. The last specimens, when cut from the tree, are as much as eight feet in length, dark purple-brown in color, and highly fragrant. At Pesth are made pipes about eighteen inches in length, of the shoots of the mock orange, remarkable for their quality in absorbing the oil of tobacco, they are flexible without being weak. The French make elegant pipe-bowls of the root of the tree-heath, but their chief attention is directed, as far as concerns wood pipes, to those of brier-root, which are made by them in large quantities. The bowl and the short stems are carried out of one piece, and the wood is credited with absorbing some of the rank oil of tobacco.

Amber—the only kind of resin that rises to the dignity of a gem—is unfitted for the bowl of a tobacco-pipe, because it cannot well bear the heat; but it is largely used for mouth-pieces, especially by wealthy Oriental smokers. The Turks have a belief that amber wards off infection; an opinion which, whether right or wrong, tells well for the amber workers. There has always been a mystery connected with this remarkable substance. So far back as the Phenicians, amber was picked up on the Baltic shore of what is now called Prussia; and the same region has ever since been the chief store-house for it. Tacitus was not far wrong when he conjectured that amber is a gum or resin exuded from certain trees, although other authorities have preferred a theory that it is a kind of wax or fat which has undergone slow petrifaction. At any rate, it must at one time have been liquid or semi-liquid; for insects, flies, detached wings and legs, and small fragments of various kinds, are often found imbedded in it—those odds and ends of which Pope said:—

"The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare;The wonder's how the devil they got there!"

Whether new stores of amber are now being formed, or whether, like coal, it was the result of causes not now in operation, is an unsolved problem. The specimens obtained differ considerably; some are pale as primrose, some deep orange or almost brown; some nearly as transparent as crystal, some nearly opaque. Large pieces, uniform in color and translucency, fetch high prices; and there are fashions in this matter for which it is not easy to account,—seeing that the Turks and other Orientals buy up, at prices which Europeans are unwilling to give, all the specimens presenting a straw-yellow color and a sort of cloudy translucency. The Russians, on the contrary, prefer orange-yellow transparent specimens. The amber is seldom obtained by actual mining.

Searching for Amber.

It is usually found on sea-coasts, after storms, in rounded nodules; or, if scarce on shore, it is sought for by men clad in leather garments, who wade up to their necks in the sea, and scrape the sea-bottom with hooped nets attached to the end of long poles; or (rather dangerous work) men go out in boats, and examine the faces of precipitous cliffs, picking off, by means of iron hooks, the lumps of amber which they may see here and there. Sometimes a piece weighing nearly a pound is found, and a weight of even ten pounds is recorded. As small pieces can easily be joined by smoothing the surfaces, moistening them with linseed oil, and pressing them together over a charcoal fire, and as gum copal is sometimes very like amber, there is much sophistication indulged in, which none but an expert can guard against. In fashioning the nodules of amber, whether genuine orfictitious, into pipe mouth-pieces, they are split on a leaden plate in a turning lathe, smoothed into shape by whet-stones, rubbed with chalk and water, and polished with a piece of flannel. It is an especially difficult kind of work; for unless the amber is allowed frequent intervals for cooling, it becomes electrically excited by the friction and shivers into fragments; the men, too, are put into nervous tremors if kept too long at work at one time. Amber is one of the most electrically excitable of all known substances; in fact, the name electricity itself was derived fromelectron, the Greek name for amber. Hookahs, chibouques, narghiles, meerschaums, all are largely adorned with amber mouth-pieces. The mouth-piece often consists of two or three pieces of amber, interjoined with ornaments of gold and gems; it is in such case the most costly part of the pipe.

At one of the greater industrial exhibitions four Turkish amames, or amber mouth-pieces, were shown, illustrating clearly enough the value attached to choice specimens; two of them were worth £350 each, two £200 each, diamond studded. The Turkish and Persian pipes have often a small wooden tube inside the amber mouth-piece. They require frequent cleaning with a long wire and a bit of tow, and in some large towns there are professional pipe-cleaners.

The natives of British Guiana have a curious kind of pipe, made of the rind of the fruit of the areca-palm, coiled up into a kind of cheroot, with an internal hollow to hold the tobacco. The poorer Hindoos make a simple pipe of two pieces of bamboo,—one cut close to a knot for the bowl, and a more slender piece for the tube. A lower class of natives in India make two holes of unequal length, with a piece of stick, in a clay soil; the holes are unequally inclined so as to meet at the bottom; the tobacco is placed in the shorter hole, and the smoker, applying his mouth to the longer, inhales the fumes in this primitive fashion. The pipes used for opium-smoking in various parts of the East have small bowls; the drug is too costly to be used otherwise than in small portions at a time, and too powerful to need more thana few whiffs to produce the opium-smoker's dreary delirium.

The Tunisians use reeds for pipes. Stone pipes are found among the natives of Vancouver; while Strong Bow, the North American Indian chief, has his long wooden pipe of peace, decked out with tassels and fringes, but with an ominous-looking sharp steel cutting instrument near the end most remote from the bowl.

Chinese, Japanese, Philippine Islanders, Madagascans, Central Africans, Algerine Arabs, Mexicans, Paraguayans, Siamese, Tahitians, South American Indians, Mongols, Malays, Tartars, Turcomans, as well as the nations of Europe and the chief nations of Southern Asia, all have their smoking-pipes, plain or ornate, as the case may be, and made of wood, reeds, bamboo, bone, ivory, stone, earthenware, glass, porcelain, amber, agate, jade, precious metals and common metals, according to the civilization of the country and the pecuniary means of the smoker.

Fancy Pipes.

"The French clay pipes have quite a special character; they are well made, and great ingenuity is shown in the preparation of the moulds in which they are pressed; but being mostly intended for a class of purchasers who prefer grotesque ideas to refined taste, the bowls are often ornamented with queer shaped heads, having bead-like eyes; sometimes imaginary beings, sometimes caricature portraits of eminent persons. Where more than the head is represented, license is given to a certain grossness of idea; but this is not a general characteristic. The clay of which these French pipes are made is admitted to be superior to that of England, due to the careful mixture of different kinds, and to skilful manipulation."We need not say much about Dutch pipes as distinct articles of manufacture, because the process adopted in their production are pretty much like those in use elsewhere. The Dutch are famous clay-pipe smokers, not countenancing the cigar so much as their neighbors the Belgians, nor the meerschaum so largely as their German neighbors on the Rhine frontier. A notable bit of sharp practice is on recordin connexion with the pipe-smokers of Holland—a dodge only to be justified on the equivocal maxim that all is fair in trade provided it just keeps within the margin we need not speak. A pipe manufactory was established in Flanders about the middle of the last century."The Dutch makers, alarmed at the competition which this threatened, cunningly devised a stratagem for nipping it in the bud. They freighted a large worn-out ship with an enormous quantity of pipes of their own make, sent it to Ostend, and wrecked it there. By the municipal laws of that city the wreck became public property; the pipes were sold at prices so ridiculously low that the town was glutted with the commodity; the new Flemish factory was thereby paralyzed, ruined, and closed."

"We need not say much about Dutch pipes as distinct articles of manufacture, because the process adopted in their production are pretty much like those in use elsewhere. The Dutch are famous clay-pipe smokers, not countenancing the cigar so much as their neighbors the Belgians, nor the meerschaum so largely as their German neighbors on the Rhine frontier. A notable bit of sharp practice is on recordin connexion with the pipe-smokers of Holland—a dodge only to be justified on the equivocal maxim that all is fair in trade provided it just keeps within the margin we need not speak. A pipe manufactory was established in Flanders about the middle of the last century.

"The Dutch makers, alarmed at the competition which this threatened, cunningly devised a stratagem for nipping it in the bud. They freighted a large worn-out ship with an enormous quantity of pipes of their own make, sent it to Ostend, and wrecked it there. By the municipal laws of that city the wreck became public property; the pipes were sold at prices so ridiculously low that the town was glutted with the commodity; the new Flemish factory was thereby paralyzed, ruined, and closed."

The Turks (especially those of the lower orders) use a kind of clay pipe made of red earth decorated with gilding. The stem of the pipe is made from a branch of jasmine, cherry tree or maple and is sufficiently long to rest on the floor when used by the smoker. A writer in theTobacco Plantsays of Old English Clay pipes:

"Of all the various branches of the subject of tobacco, that of the history of pipes is one of the most interesting, and one that deserves every attention that can possibly be given. Whether considered ethnographically, historically, geographically, or archæologically, pipes present food for speculation and research of at least equal importance to any other set of objects that can be brought forward. Some branches of the subject have already been treated in these columns, and others, in what is intended shall follow, will hereafter be discussed. The present article will be devoted to 'Fairy Pipes' and the history of the earliest pipes of this country. Smoking is an old and venerable institution in this kingdom of ours, and dates far back beyond the introduction of tobacco to our shores. Long before Sir Walter Raleigh was thought of, there is reason to believe herbs and leaves of one kind or other—coltsfoot, yarrow, mouse-lax, sword-grass, dandelion, and other plants, and even dried cow-dung—were smoked for one ailment or other, and in some instances for relaxation and pleasure, and thus, no doubt, became habitually used. These are still, in some of our rural districts, smoked by people as cures for various ailments, and are considered not only highly efficacious but very pleasant. I have known these or other herbs smokedthrough a stick from which the pith had been removed, the bowl being formed of a lump of clay moulded by the fingers at the time, and baked in the household fire.

Clay and Reed Pipes.

"The small branches of the elder tree, or sometimes the stem of the briar and bramble, are what I have seen used, but even the stem of the hemlock and keckse are sometimes brought into requisition for the purpose."I believe that long before the time Dr. Wilson states on the authority of Sharpe, that it was common within memory, for the old wives of Annandale to smoke a dried white moss gathered on the neighboring moors, which they declared to be much sweeter than tobacco, and to have been in use long before the American weed was heard of; before Sir Walter Raleigh wooed and won Elizabeth Throgmorton, or Sir Richard Granville voyaged to Virginia with Masters Ralph Layne, Thomas Candish, John Arundell, Master Stukely, Bremize, Vincent, Heryot, and John Clarke; before Sir Francis Drake made his first voyage, or the Spanish Armada was dreamed of; before Sir John Hawkins, Captain Price, Coft, Keat or others for whom the honor of the introduction of tobacco has been claimed, drew breath—smoking was to some extent indulged in by our forefathers and (still medicinally, of course) in this country. In mediæval times, when the Ceramic art was but little practiced, and when all the domestic vessels that were produced were of the rudest and coarsest character both in material, form, and decoration, it is not to be expected that pipes for the smoking of herbs would be manufactured as a matter of sale, and those of the people who wished for such an indulgence would naturally be thrown on their own primitive resources such as I have described, for instruments for the purpose."A portion of a very rude pipe-head, formed of common red clay—a lump of clay moulded by hand, and ornamented with small circles pressed into it as from the end of a stick—has come under my notice, as have also others of an equally primitive character, found in different parts of this kingdom. These I have no hesitation in ascribing to a pre-Raleighperiod. It is not to these, however, but to the small pipes formerly used in this kingdom for smoking tobacco, and tobacco alone, that I wish to draw attention. Most people, especially in the Midland and Northern counties of England, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, will have heard the name of Fairy Pipes applied to the small, old-fashioned, and sometimes oddly-shaped tobacco pipes which are not infrequently turned up in digging and plowing and other operations. To these and the general forms of old English pipes, I purpose confining myself in the present article. Many years ago I collected together a large number of these 'Fairy Pipes' from all parts of the kingdom. Since then, my own researches have, with the aid of inquiries carried on for me, enabled me to bring forward many interesting points, so as to verify dates of manufacture and more fully to carry out their classification. Like their Irish brethren and sisters, English people were formerly apt to ascribe everything unusually small to the fairies, and anything out of the common way to the people of very remote ages."Thus, these small pipes are commonly in England called 'fairy pipes,' or 'Carl's pipes,' or 'old man's pipes;' in Ireland, where they are likewise known as 'fairy pipes,' they are also called 'Dane's pipes;' and in Scotland, where their common name is 'elf pipes,' or 'elfin pipes,' they are, in like manner, known as 'Celtic pipes.' They are also sometimes named 'Mab pipes,' or 'Queen's pipes,' from the same fairy majesty, Queen Mab. Thus, while in each country they are ascribed to the elfin race—the 'small people' of Cornish folk-lore—their secondary names attach to them a popular belief in their extreme antiquity. Anything apparently old is at once, by the Irish, set down to the 'Danes;' by the Scots to the 'Celts;' and by people in the rural districts of our own country to the 'carls,' or 'old men'—carl being indicative of extreme antiquity. In Ireland, the pipes are believed to have belonged to thecluricaunes—a kind of wild, ungovernable, mischievous fairy-demon—who were held in awe by the 'pisantry;' and whenever found, these pipes were, with much superstitious feeling, immediately broken up, so as to destroy and break up the spell their finding might have cast around the finder. But it was not only among the peasantry that this belief in the extreme antiquity of tobacco pipes existed."Serious essays were written to prove their pre-historic origin, and to claim for them a history that in our day reads as arrant nonsense. In 1784, a short pipe was asserted tohave been found between the jaws of the skull of an ancient Milesian exhumed at Bannockstown, county Kildare. Upon this discovery, an elaborate and learned paper was written in the 'Anthologia Hibernica,' setting forth this pipe as a proof of the use of tobacco in Ireland long before that country was invaded by the Danes. This pipe has been proved by comparison to be probably quite late in the reign of Elizabeth. They also have a more modern pipe, the stem of which describes one or more circles, while another is tied in a knot, yet allows a free passage of air. At another time, in opening an Anglo-Saxon grave mound, some of the men employed came across a fairy pipe which evidently had rolled down from among the surface-soil, and, being turned out in juxtaposition with undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, was immediately set down by the learned director of the proceedings as a relic of that period. At another time I had brought to me, as a great curiosity, two 'Roman pipes,' as I was informed—the finders jumping to the conclusion that because they had dug them up at little Chester (the Roman station Derventio), they must be Roman pipes! I believe they expected to receive a large sum from these relics: how grievously they were disappointed I need not tell. Instances of this kind are far from rare.

"I believe that long before the time Dr. Wilson states on the authority of Sharpe, that it was common within memory, for the old wives of Annandale to smoke a dried white moss gathered on the neighboring moors, which they declared to be much sweeter than tobacco, and to have been in use long before the American weed was heard of; before Sir Walter Raleigh wooed and won Elizabeth Throgmorton, or Sir Richard Granville voyaged to Virginia with Masters Ralph Layne, Thomas Candish, John Arundell, Master Stukely, Bremize, Vincent, Heryot, and John Clarke; before Sir Francis Drake made his first voyage, or the Spanish Armada was dreamed of; before Sir John Hawkins, Captain Price, Coft, Keat or others for whom the honor of the introduction of tobacco has been claimed, drew breath—smoking was to some extent indulged in by our forefathers and (still medicinally, of course) in this country. In mediæval times, when the Ceramic art was but little practiced, and when all the domestic vessels that were produced were of the rudest and coarsest character both in material, form, and decoration, it is not to be expected that pipes for the smoking of herbs would be manufactured as a matter of sale, and those of the people who wished for such an indulgence would naturally be thrown on their own primitive resources such as I have described, for instruments for the purpose.

"A portion of a very rude pipe-head, formed of common red clay—a lump of clay moulded by hand, and ornamented with small circles pressed into it as from the end of a stick—has come under my notice, as have also others of an equally primitive character, found in different parts of this kingdom. These I have no hesitation in ascribing to a pre-Raleighperiod. It is not to these, however, but to the small pipes formerly used in this kingdom for smoking tobacco, and tobacco alone, that I wish to draw attention. Most people, especially in the Midland and Northern counties of England, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, will have heard the name of Fairy Pipes applied to the small, old-fashioned, and sometimes oddly-shaped tobacco pipes which are not infrequently turned up in digging and plowing and other operations. To these and the general forms of old English pipes, I purpose confining myself in the present article. Many years ago I collected together a large number of these 'Fairy Pipes' from all parts of the kingdom. Since then, my own researches have, with the aid of inquiries carried on for me, enabled me to bring forward many interesting points, so as to verify dates of manufacture and more fully to carry out their classification. Like their Irish brethren and sisters, English people were formerly apt to ascribe everything unusually small to the fairies, and anything out of the common way to the people of very remote ages.

"Thus, these small pipes are commonly in England called 'fairy pipes,' or 'Carl's pipes,' or 'old man's pipes;' in Ireland, where they are likewise known as 'fairy pipes,' they are also called 'Dane's pipes;' and in Scotland, where their common name is 'elf pipes,' or 'elfin pipes,' they are, in like manner, known as 'Celtic pipes.' They are also sometimes named 'Mab pipes,' or 'Queen's pipes,' from the same fairy majesty, Queen Mab. Thus, while in each country they are ascribed to the elfin race—the 'small people' of Cornish folk-lore—their secondary names attach to them a popular belief in their extreme antiquity. Anything apparently old is at once, by the Irish, set down to the 'Danes;' by the Scots to the 'Celts;' and by people in the rural districts of our own country to the 'carls,' or 'old men'—carl being indicative of extreme antiquity. In Ireland, the pipes are believed to have belonged to thecluricaunes—a kind of wild, ungovernable, mischievous fairy-demon—who were held in awe by the 'pisantry;' and whenever found, these pipes were, with much superstitious feeling, immediately broken up, so as to destroy and break up the spell their finding might have cast around the finder. But it was not only among the peasantry that this belief in the extreme antiquity of tobacco pipes existed.

"Serious essays were written to prove their pre-historic origin, and to claim for them a history that in our day reads as arrant nonsense. In 1784, a short pipe was asserted tohave been found between the jaws of the skull of an ancient Milesian exhumed at Bannockstown, county Kildare. Upon this discovery, an elaborate and learned paper was written in the 'Anthologia Hibernica,' setting forth this pipe as a proof of the use of tobacco in Ireland long before that country was invaded by the Danes. This pipe has been proved by comparison to be probably quite late in the reign of Elizabeth. They also have a more modern pipe, the stem of which describes one or more circles, while another is tied in a knot, yet allows a free passage of air. At another time, in opening an Anglo-Saxon grave mound, some of the men employed came across a fairy pipe which evidently had rolled down from among the surface-soil, and, being turned out in juxtaposition with undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, was immediately set down by the learned director of the proceedings as a relic of that period. At another time I had brought to me, as a great curiosity, two 'Roman pipes,' as I was informed—the finders jumping to the conclusion that because they had dug them up at little Chester (the Roman station Derventio), they must be Roman pipes! I believe they expected to receive a large sum from these relics: how grievously they were disappointed I need not tell. Instances of this kind are far from rare.

Fairy Pipes.

"I remember a man once bringing me some fragments of Roman pottery and other things of the same period, which he had turned up in the course of excavations, and among them was a Tobacco stopper formed of a Sacheverell medal! and a George II. half-penny, all of which he was ready to swear he had found "all of a heap together," inside a hypocaust tile, which, on examination, certainly had remainedin situfrom Romano-British times! The cupidity of a man had evidently led him to collect together these odds and ends, and try to turn them to profitable account. Some twenty years ago, a large number of "elfin pipes" were dug up at Bomington, near Edinburgh, along with a quantity of placks or bodles of James VI., which thus gave trustworthy evidence of their true date. Others were found in the ancient cemetery at North Berwick, adjoining to which is a small Romanesque building of the Twelfth Century, close upon the shore. Within the last half-century, the sea hasmade very great inroads upon this ancient burial-place, carrying off a considerable ruin, and exposing the skeletons, and bringing to light many interesting relics at almost every spring-tide. Among these, many pipes have been washed down. A similar circumstance has occurred on the seashore at Hoy Lake, Cheshire, where several "fairy pipes" have been found."Notices of several discoveries occur. Dr. Wilson says, in the statistical accounts of Scotland, many of which are suggestive of a pre-Raleigh period. Thus, 'in an ancient British encampment in the parish of Kirk Michael, Dumfriesshire, on the farm of Gilrig, a number of pipes of burnt clay were dug up, with heads smaller than the modern tobacco-pipes, swelled at the middle and straighter at the top. Again, in the vicinity of a group of standing stones at Cairney Mount, in the parish of Carluke Lanarkshire, a celt or stone hatchet, elfin bolts (flint and bone arrow-heads), elfin pipes, numerous coins of the Edwards and of later date, and other things are all stated to have been found.' An example is also recorded of the discovery of a tobacco-pipe in sinking a pit for coal, at Misk, in Ayrshire, after digging through many feet of sand. All these notes are pregnant with significant warnings of the necessity for cautious discrimination in determining the antiquity of such buried relics."

"Notices of several discoveries occur. Dr. Wilson says, in the statistical accounts of Scotland, many of which are suggestive of a pre-Raleigh period. Thus, 'in an ancient British encampment in the parish of Kirk Michael, Dumfriesshire, on the farm of Gilrig, a number of pipes of burnt clay were dug up, with heads smaller than the modern tobacco-pipes, swelled at the middle and straighter at the top. Again, in the vicinity of a group of standing stones at Cairney Mount, in the parish of Carluke Lanarkshire, a celt or stone hatchet, elfin bolts (flint and bone arrow-heads), elfin pipes, numerous coins of the Edwards and of later date, and other things are all stated to have been found.' An example is also recorded of the discovery of a tobacco-pipe in sinking a pit for coal, at Misk, in Ayrshire, after digging through many feet of sand. All these notes are pregnant with significant warnings of the necessity for cautious discrimination in determining the antiquity of such buried relics."

In Turkey the jasmine is cultivated for the purpose of pipe smoking. Barillet describes the growing of the common jasmine near Constantinople. He says:

"The object sought is a long straight stem, free from leaves and side branches. For this purpose the plants are grown quickly in a rich soil, and drawn up by being grown in a sheltered situation, to which the sun has little access at the sides, but only at the top. Pinching is resorted to, and during the second year's growth one end of a thread is attached to the top of the jasmine stem. This thread passes over a pulley attached to the post to which this jasmine is trained, and from it is suspended a weight, the effect of which is to keep the stem always in a vertical direction. When the jasmine stem is about two centimeters (say three quarters of an inch) in diameter a cloth is wrapped around it to prevent access of dust and of the sun's rays. Twice or thrice in the year the stem is washed with citron-water, which is said to give the clear color so much esteemed. When the stem has acquired a length of some fifteen feet, itis cut down and perforated by the workmen, and fitted with a terra-cotta bow and an amber mouth-piece."

Blackburn, in his work entitled "Artists and Arabs," gives the following picture of life and manners in Algiers:—

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