Turk Smoking.
"As each man smokes only out of his own pipe, it is not surprising that this instrument is an indispensable accompaniment of every person of rank. Men of the higher classes keep two or three servants to attend to their pipes. While one looks after things at home, the other has to accompany his master in his walks and rides. The long stem is on such occasions packed in a finely embroidered cloth cover, while the bowl, tobacco, and other accessories are carried by the servant in a pouch at his side. A stranger in Constantinople will often regard with curiosity and surprise, a proud Osmanli on foot or horseback, followed by an attendant who, through the long, carefully-packed instrument which he carries, gives one the idea that he is a weapon-bearer of some heroic period following his lord to some dangerous rendezvous. So are the times altered. What the armor-bearer was for the warlike races of old, such is the tchbukdi for their degenerate descendants.
"To smoke from sixty to eighty pipes a day is by no means uncommon; for whatever be the business, no matter how serious, in which the Turk is engaged, he must smoke at it. In the divan, where the grandees of the empire consult together on the most delicate affairs of State, the question was once mooted whether the tchbukdes should not be excluded from such debates as were of a strictly private nature. There was a great diversity of opinion on the subject. Politics and reason were on opposite sides. At last it was decided that they would not disgrace an ancient national usage, but would allow the harmless attendants to enter the council-room every now and then to change the pipes. In Turkey, pipes and tobacco afford means of distinguishing not only the different classes of the community, but even the several graduates of rank in the same class. A mushir (marshal) would find it derogatory to his dignity to smoke out of a stem less than two yards in length. The artisan or official of a lower rank, would consider it highly unbecoming on his part to use one which exceeded the proper proportions of his class. A superior stretches his pipe before him to his inferior; while the latter must hold his modestly on one side, only allowing the end of the mouth-piece to peep out of his closed fist.
"The pasha has the right to puff out his smoke before him like a steam engine, while his inferiors are only allowed to breathe forth a light curl of smoke, and that must be let off backwards. Not to smoke at all in the presence of a superior, is held the most delicate homage which can be paid him. A son, for instance, acts in this manner in the presence of his father, and only such a one is considered to be well brought up who declines to smoke even after his father has repeatedly invited him to do so. The fair sex in the East is scarcely less addicted to the use of this weed.
"The girl of twelve years old smokes a cigarette of the thickness of pack-thread. When she has attained her fourteenth or fifteenth year, and is already marriageable, she is allowed to indulge her penchant at will, which is forbidden when younger. After this age the diameter of the cigarette increases year by year; and when a lady has reached the mature age of twenty-four, no one sees anything remarkable in her smoking a modest little chibouque as she sits on the lower divan of the harem. Elderly matrons—and in Turkey every lady is an elderly matron in her fortieth year—are passionately devoted to this enjoyment. The pipe-bowls and stems always remain of the size appropriated by etiquette to the use of the harem; but the strongest and most pungent sorts of tobacco are not unseldom smoked, until the mouth, which, according to the assurance of the poet, in the bloom of its youth breathed forth ambergiris and musk, in its fortieth year acquires so strong a smell that the lady can be scented from a distance.
"Like their lords, the hanyrus of rank have also their tchbukdes, of course of their own sex, who accompany them when out walking or on a visit. In this case, however, the cover in which the pipe-stem is made, not of cloth, but of silk. The habit of refreshing oneself with a pipe on some elevated spot which commands a fine view, is common to both sexes. Men can indulge this taste whenever their fancy may suggest, but ladies only in retired spots; for, whenever a Turkish fair one removes the yas mak (veil) from her lips, as she does to smoke, all around her must be harem (sacred).
"Sometimes an eunuch stands guard at a little distance off, and if a stranger of the male sex approaches, gives a signal; the pipe is held aside, while the mouth is kept covered by the veil, until the unexpected Acteon has passed by. But where the pipe plays the most important part is in the bath. It is well known that the Turkish ladies are accustomed to frequent the hommams assiduously, and to remain there for hours together. They enter the bath about eight o'clock in the morning; take their midday meal there, and return home between three and four in the afternoon. During these hours of leisure, the most agreeable in a Mohammedan woman's life, the pipe is their constant resource. In the middle of the warmest room is a round terrace-like elevation, called Gobek-tosh.
"Here are clustered old and young, the snow white daughters of Circassia and the coal-black beauties of Soudan, and beguile the hours with never ending gossip, while around them rise the dense fumes of their pipes. Now one of the elders of the party tells a story, now a learned lady holds a discourse on religion, or extols the beauty and virtue of 'Aisha Fatima.'"
The Fairy, or Dane's pipe is the most ancient form of the tobacco pipe used in Great Britain and of about the same size as the "Elfin pipes" of the Scottish peasantry. A great variety of pipes both in form and size have been found in the British Islands some of which are of ancient origin bearing dates prior to the Seventeenth Century. Some of these ancient pipes are formed of very fine clay and although they held but a small quantity of tobacco were doubtless considered to be fine specimens in their time.