Japanese Pipes.
A writer says of smoking among the Japanese:
"Let us sit down to a good Japanese dinner—down on the floor. Food on the floor. Fire and cigars or pipes on the floor. Sit on your heels, waiting. Enter first course—Fish-skin soup. Smoke. Third—Fish, cake and bean-cheese. Smoke. Fourth—Row fish and horse-radish. Smoke. Fifth—Broiled fish. Smoke again, Sixth—Custard soup. Smoke. Seventh—Chicken stew, turnips and onions. Smoke a little. Eighth—Cuttle-fish, wafer cakes, Nipon tea. Here, if tired you can stop at the end of about two hours' ankle-ache. All is cleanly, well spiced with talk, and served with the utmost politeness. Sipping tea may be substituted for the infinitesimal whiffs of polite smoking. A grand dinner is much more elaborate; at least, so far as the variety of smokes is concerned. After dinner, rest and smoke."
An English writer could very appropriately call this a cloud of smoke as he has another scene herein described.
"'Tis all smoke, possibly, but what cannot we discern, through a cloud of smoke? Objects dim, but
'Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallambrosa.'
Be the medium of the smoke an honest 'churchwarden,' a short clay, or a costly meerschaum; does the smoke emanate from a refined Havana, a neat Manilla, or a dainty cigarette, such as we are at this moment enjoying as a sequel to a modest breakfast, 'tis all smoke."
We have thus given a somewhat lengthy description of the custom and implements used in smoking, from the first discovery of the plant until now, and turn to other implements used in connection with the pipe. We, however, give the following from Cop's "Tobacco Plant," descriptive of the part played by tobacco on the stage two centuries ago: