e 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.
The manufacture of pipes commenced soon after the custom of using
tobacco had become fashionable and soon after the Virginians commenced
its cultivation. Fairholt says:
[Illustration: Old English pipes.]
"The early period at which tobacco pipes were first
manufactured, is established by the fact that the
incorporation of the craft of tobacco-pipe makers took place
on the 5th of October, 1619. Their privileges extending
through the cities of London and Westminster, the kingdom of
England and dominion of Wales. They have a Master, four
Wardens, and about twenty-four Assistants. They were first
incorporated by King James in his seventeenth year,
confirmed again by King Charles I., and lastly on the
twenty-ninth of April in the fifteenth year of King Charles
II., in all the privileges of their aforesaid charters.
"The London Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers was incorporated
in the reign of Charles II (1663); it had no hall and no
livery but was governed by a Master two wardens, and
eighteen assistants. The first pipes used in the British
Islands were made of silver while 'ordinary ones' were made
of a walnut shell and a straw. Afterwards appeared the more
common clay pipes in various forms and which are in use at
the present time."
During the reign of Anne and George I. the pipes assumed a different
form and greater length so long were the stems of some of them that
they were called yard
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