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
water _pur 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 the East 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.'"

TURKISH CHIBOUQUES AND WOOD PIPES.

"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