“That juice of earth, the bane
And blessing of man’s heart, and brain—
That draught of sorcery, which brings
Phantoms of fair forbidden things
Whose drops, like those of rainbows, smile
Upon the mists that circle man
Brightening not only earth, the while
But grasping heaven, too, in their span.”
Lalla Rookh.
The Mahometan legend of their prophet’s ascent into heaven, where he received instructions for the faith and conduct of his followers, is thus current amongst them.
As Mahomet was reclining on the sacred stone in the temple of Mecca, Gabriel came to him, and opened his breast from the breastbone to the groin, and took out his heart, and washed it in a golden basin, full of the water of Faith, and then restored it to its place. Afterwards a white beast was brought to him, less than a mule, and larger than an ass, called Al-Borak. It had a human face, but the cheeks of a horse, its eyes were jacinths, and radiant as stars. It had eagle’s wings, all glittering with rays of light, and its whole form was resplendent with gems and precious stones. Upon this Mahomet was borne. Gabriel150 proceeded with him to the first heaven of silver, and knocked at the door, after some conversation he was welcomed, and the door opened. Here Mahomet saluted Adam. They then proceeded to the second heaven, all of polished steel and dazzling splendour, and saluted Noah. They then entered the third heaven, studded with precious stones, and too brilliant for mortal eyes. Here was seen Azrael, the Angel of Death, writing continually in a book the names of those who are to be born, and blotting out those who are to die. They mounted to the fourth heaven, of the finest silver, where they saw the Angel of Tears, who was appointed to weep over the sins of men, and predict the evils that awaited them. The fifth heaven was of purest gold. Here Mahomet was received and saluted by Aaron. This heaven was inhabited by the Avenging Angel. He sat on a throne surrounded by flames, and before him was a heap of red hot chains. The sixth heaven was composed of a transparent stone, where dwelt the guardian angel of heaven and earth. Here Moses wept at the sight of the prophet who was to have more followers than himself. Mahomet then entered the seventh heaven of divine light, where he saw many marvellous things, which he related for the instruction of the faithful. He entered Al Mamour, the house of Adoration, and as he entered, three vases were offered him, one containing wine, another milk, and a third honey. He drank of the milk, “Well hast thou done!” exclaimed Gabriel. “Hadst thou drunk of the wine, thy people had all gone astray.” The Prophet then returned to earth, as he had ascended to heaven.
The Al-Borak of modern Moslems is opium, by means of this most miraculous of vehicles they mount to the heaven of heavens.
What are the true effects of opium are best151 described by an eminent physician, who has studied well the results produced by all such influences upon the brain. The imagination appears to be acted upon, independent of the peculiar torpor, accompanied by sensations of gratification, and the absence of all communication with the external world. The senses convey no false impressions to the brain; all that is seen, heard, or felt, is faithfully delineated, but the imagination clothes each object in its own fanciful garb. It exaggerates, it multiplies, it colours, it gives fantastic shapes; there is a new condition arising out of ordinary perception, and the reason, abandoning itself to the imagination, does not resist the delight of indulging in visions. If the eyes are closed, and nothing presented to excite the external senses, a whole train of vivid dreams are presented. A theatre is lighted up in the brain—graceful dancers perform the most captivating evolutions—music of an unearthly character floats along—poesy, whose harmonious numbers, and whose exciting themes, are far beyond the power of the human mind, is unceasingly poured forth. Memory is, however, generally asleep—all the passions, affections, and motions have lost their sway. It is all an exquisite indolence, during which dreams spontaneously arise, brilliant, beautiful, and exhilarating. There is order, harmony, tranquillity. If a single object has been vividly impressed upon the eye, it is multiplied a thousand times by the imagination—vast processions pass him in his reveries in mournful pomp.
That this is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium, we may learn from De Quincey, of which church he acknowledges himself to be the Pope, and self-appointed legate à latere to all degrees of latitude and longitude.
152
“I often fell into such reveries after taking opium, and many a time it has happened to me on a summer night, when I have been seated at an open window, from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could, at the same time, command a view of some great town standing on a different radius of my circular prospect, but at nearly the same distance—that from sunset to sunrise, all through the hours of night, I have continued motionless, as if frozen, without consciousness of myself as of an object anywise distinct from the multiform scene which I contemplated from above. Such a scene in all its elements was not unfrequently realised for me on the gentle eminence of Everton. Obliquely to the left, lay the many languaged town of Liverpool; obliquely to the right, the multitudinous sea. The scene itself was somewhat typical of what took place in such a reverie. The town of Liverpool represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, yet brooded over by dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind, and the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance aloof from the uproar of life, as if the tumult, the fever, and the strife were suspended; a respite were granted from the secret burdens of the heart, some sabbath of repose, some resting from human labours. Here were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm; tranquillity that seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms, infinite activities, infinite repose.”
And now let us follow him to the Opera. “The late Duke of Norfolk used to say,153 ‘Next Monday, wind and weather permitting, I propose to be drunk;’ and, in like manner, I used to fix beforehand how often, within a given time, when, and with what accessory circumstances of festal joy, I would commit a debauch of opium. This was seldom more than once in three weeks, for at that time I could not have ventured to call every day (as afterwards I did) for ‘a glass of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar.’
“No: once in three weeks sufficed; and the time selected was either a Tuesday or a Saturday night, my reason for which was this—Tuesday and Saturday were for many years the regular nights of performance at the opera house, and there in those times Grassini sang, and her voice was delightful to me beyond all that I had ever heard. Thrilling was the pleasure with which almost always I heard her. Shivering with expectation I sat, when the time drew near for her golden epiphany, shivering I rose from my seat, incapable of rest, when that heavenly and harp-like voice sang its own victorious welcome in its prelusive threttanelo—threttanelo. The choruses were divine to hear; and, when Grassini appeared in some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as Andromache at the tomb of Hector, &c., I question whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the paradise of opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. But, indeed, I honour the barbarians too much, by supposing them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an Englishman. A chorus of elaborate harmony displayed before me, as in a piece of arras work, the whole of my past life—not as if recalled by an act of memory, but as if present, and incarnated in the music; no longer painful to dwell upon, but the detail of its incidents removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction, and its passions exalted, spiritualized, and154 sublimed. And over and above the music of the stage and the orchestra I had all around me, in the intervals of the performances, the music of the Italian language talked by Italian women—for the gallery was usually crowded with Italians—and I listened with a pleasure, such as that with which Weld, the traveller, lay and listened in Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian women; for the less you understand a language, the more sensible you are to the melody or harshness of its sounds.”
Let the reader who seeks to know of his other Saturday evenings’ experiences, wandering about in the market-places, and threading the intricate mazes of bye-lanes and alleys, seek it in his “Confessions.”
An Englishman awaking one morning finds himself at Hong-Kong, in the midst of opium and opium-smokers. He is astonished that the Chinaman loves opium as he loves nothing else; he cannot think why his vitiated taste had not settled upon something nobler, why he does not take a fancy to British Brandy? But no! he loves opium. And a Parsee takes him to see the lions, and is so civil as to convey the stranger into his warehouse and open two chests of opium, that he may see the drug as it passes into commerce. Of these, the first consisted of balls, which he describes as of the size of a large apple dumpling, and when cut open the mass is found to be solid. The other was full of objects which a commander in the navy ordered his men to return to the owners of a captured junk, “Ar’nt you ashamed, my lads, to loot a lot of miserable Dutch cheeses?” The “Dutch cheeses” were Patna opium, worth about ￡5 each. Globes of thick dark jelly enclosed in a crust not unlike the rind of a cheese. The Parsee tapped one with a fragment of an iron fastening of a chest, and drew forth about a spoonful of the drug. It was not155 the opium which engaged the traveller’s attention, it was the effect it produced upon the surrounding coolies. He had never before seen excitement in a Chinaman’s face. He had seen them tried for their lives, and condemned to death. He had seen them test the long-suffering patience of Mr. Tudor Davies in the Hong-Kong police court, where that gentleman was daily engaged in laborious endeavours to extract truth out of conflicting lies. He had seen them laugh heartily at a gesture at a sing-song; and he once saw a witness grin with great delight, as he unexpectedly saw his most intimate friend, a tradesman of reputed wealth, among a crowd of prisoners in the dock. But these coolies, when they saw that opium opened their horizontal, slit-shaped eyes, till they grew round and starting, their limbs, so lax and limpid, when not in actual strain of labour, were stiff from excitement, every head was pressed forward, every hand seemed ready to clutch. There was a possibility that it would be put down upon the window-sill, near which the stranger and his Parsee friend were standing—and there could be seen the shadow of fingers ready to slide in. It was almost certain that it would be thrown aside—and there was the grand hope of an opium debauch gratis, and this was the state of mind that hope created. And oh what raptures, what d............