There is yet another mineral production, the use of which Turkish smokers, at any rate, know how to appreciate. This is amber. The Turk will expend an almost fabulous sum in an amber mouth-piece for his narghileh. Four valuable articles of this description were exhibited in the Turkish department of the Exhibition of 1851, which were worth together £1000, two of them being valued at £305 each. There is a current belief in Turkey that amber is incapable of transmitting infection; and as it is considered a great mark of politeness to offer the pipe to a stranger, this presumed property of amber accounts in some measure for the estimation in which it is held.
The knowledge of amber extends backwards to a remote antiquity, as the Phœnicians of old fetched it from Prussia. Since that period it has been obtained there uninterruptedly, without any diminution in the quantity annually collected. The greatest amount of amber is found on the coast of Prussia proper, between Konigsberg and Dantzic. From the amber-beds on the coast of Dirschkeim, extending under the sea, a storm threw up, on the 1st of January, 1848, no less than 800 pounds. The amber fishery of Prussia formerly produced to the king about 25,000 crowns per month. After a storm, the amber coasts are crowded with gatherers, large masses of amber being occasionally cast up by the waves. In digging for a well in the coal-mines near Prague, the workmen lately discovered, between the bed of gritstone which forms the roof of that mine and the first layer of coals, a bed of yellow amber, apparently of great extent. Pieces weighing from two to three pounds have been extracted. There are two kinds—the terrestrial, which is dug in mines, and the marine, which is cast ashore during autumnal storms.
Opinions vary as to the origin of amber. Tacitus and others have considered it a fossil resin exhaled by certain coniferous trees, traces of which are frequently observed among the amber, whilst other theorists contend that it is a species of wax or fat, having undergone a slow process of putrefaction; this latter view being based upon the fact that chemists are able to convert fatty or cerous substances into succinic acid by artificial oxidation. One thing is, however, certain, that amber, at some period of its history, must have existed in a state of fluidity, since numerous insects, especially of the spider kind, are found imbedded in it; and a specimen has been shown enclosing the leg of a toad. Toads are in the habit of living for centuries, we are informed, cooped up in stone and rock; but we are not aware that hitherto any of these extraordinary reptiles have been found buried alive in a mass of amber. Masses of amber have been found weighing from 4 lbs. to 6 lbs.—more than large enough to contain a toad or two of ordinary dimensions.
For a knowledge of the pipes of modern Egypt, we must resort for information to Mr. Lane, from whom we gather the following notes. The pipe (which is called by many names, as “shibuk,” “ood,” &c.) is generally between four and five feet long. Some pipes are shorter, and some of greater length. The most common kind used in Egypt is made of a kind of wood called “garmashak.” The greater part of the stick is covered with silk, which is confined at each extremity by gold thread, often intertwined with coloured silks, or by a tube of gilt 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. Cherrystick pipes, which are never covered, are used by some persons, particularly in the winter. In summer, the smoke is not so cool from the cherrystick pipe as from the kind before mentioned. The bowl is of baked earth, coloured red or brown. The mouth-piece is composed of two or more pieces of opaque, light-coloured amber, interjoined by ornaments of enamelled gold, agate, jasper, carnelion, or some other precious substance. This is the most costly part of the pipe. Those in ordinary use by persons of the middle classes cost from £1 to £3 sterling. A wooden tube passes through it; this is often changed, as it becomes foul from the oil of the tobacco. The pipe also requires to be cleaned very often, which is done with tow, by means of a long wire. Many poor men in Cairo gain a livelihood by cleaning pipes. Some of the Egyptians use the Persian pipe, in which the smoke passes through water. The pipe of this kind most commonly used by persons of the higher classes is called “nargeeleh,” because the vessel that contains the water is the shell of a cocoa-nut, of which “nargeeleh” is an Arabic name. Another kind which has a glass vase, is called “sheesheh,” from the Persian word signifying “glass.” Each has a very long, flexible tube.
A kind of pipe commonly called “gozeh,” which is similar to the nargeeleh, excepting that it has a short cane tube, instead of the snake, and no stand. This is used by men of the lowest class for smoking both the “tumbak” or Persian tobacco, and the narcotic hemp.
The Zoolus of Southern Africa have a kind of pipe or smoking horn called “Egoodu,” which is constructed on a similar principle to the Persian pipe. The herb is placed at the end of a reed introduced into the side of an oxhorn, which is filled with water, and the mouth applied to the upper or wide part of the horn, the smoke passing down the reed and through the water.
The Delagoans of Eastern Africa smoke the “hubble-bubble,” a similar instrument, having the upper part of the horn closed, excepting a small orifice in the centre of the covering through which the smoke is inhaled.
The Kaffirs form pipe bowls from a black, and also from a green stone; they are in shape similar to the Dutch pipes, and without ornament. The negroes of Western Africa have pipes of a reddish earth, some of them of very uncouth and singular forms, others close imitations of European pipe bowls. One kind of pipe consists of two bowls placed side by side upon a single stem. Old Indian pipes have been found in America, also fashioned out of green stone.
The natives of the South-West coast of Africa, near Elizabeth’s Bay, use pipes in the shape of a cigar tube formed of a mottled green or white mineral of the magnesian family, externally carved or roughly ornamented.
Sailors, when on a voyage, are often in difficulties for the want of pipes. Under such circumstances, numerous contrivances have at different times been resorted to to remedy the defect; such as pipes cast out of old lead, or cut out of wood. The sailors belonging to H.M.S.Samarang having lost their pipes in the Sarawak river, set to, and in a very little while, manufactured excellent pipes from different sized internodes of the bamboos that grew around them. In India, simple pipes are used composed of two pieces of bamboo, one for the bowl cut close to a knot, and a smaller one for the tube.