ich 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 attain