Read Online Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale by Henry de Monfreid - Free Book Online
Authors: Henry de Monfreid
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show me your best at once.’
He vanished, and returned in a moment with a piece of the same matter, but less brittle and of a greenish hue. He went through the same gestures, but this time the flame was long and very smoky, and hecomplacently let it burn. That, thought I, is probably the sign of really good quality. Now I knew how to buy hashish. I declared myself satisfied, and we settled on the quantity I was to buy, four hundred
okes
(six hundred kilograms), at the price of twenty francs the
oke
.
‘Now,’ said he, ‘we’ll go and fetch the goods from the warehouse where they are stored.’
A servant girl brought us little wax torches, and two hefty workmen armed with huge cudgels accompanied us. Petros opened a vaulted door, behind which a stone staircase led down into the cellars. A musty smell of damp rose from this underground passage, and almost at once we came to a crypt hewn out of the living rock. In this vault, which was circular in form, sacks were piled up; this was the hashish crop of the current year. The two workmen picked out the number of sacks which corresponded to the weight I had ordered, put them in the middle of the floor, then fell upon them with their sticks, in order to break up the contents and reduce them to dust.
We must have formed a strange group. First there was Papamanoli, the priest, in his flowing black robes, and beside him Petros, holding in his hand a piece of white paper, into which he put a sample from each sack. Each of us held aloft a little wax taper in order to give light to the men who were beating so furiously on the bulging sacks. Our shadows danced fantastically along the vaulted roof, and the bats, panic-stricken and blinded by the light, bumped their horrid soft bodies against us, making the flames of our candles flicker. I shall never forget this scene, though the others seemed quite unconscious of its picturesque quality. Petros poured the different samples from his paper into a little bag, which he gave me as indicating the average quality of my hashish. The sacks were then carried into a barn, so that the icy cold of the night should prevent the powdered hashish from coagulating afresh.
I went off to my room, escorted by the ugly little niece and one of the handsome young servant girls carrying water, towels and everything needful for the comfort of a guest. I wished my ugly little interpreter at the devil so that I should be left alone with the comely handmaiden, for I felt the need for ethnographical documentation, and the opportunity seemed excellent, but alas…
The hand-woven linen sheets were icy cold, and I could not get them warmed. All the happenings of the day kept going round and round inmy head, and the hashish I had breathed in in the crypt had set my imagination afire. I tossed and turned, and finally got up. My room was next to vast attics, certainly the servants’ quarters could not be far off. I could always have a look. So off I went groping my way through the darkness, knocking my head against great strings of onions hanging from the beams, and bumping into dusty objects, until suddenly beneath my feet I saw a ray of light, and voices came up from the floor below. I lay down and placed my eye against this crack in the old flooring, and I saw a rustic room with whitewashed walls, about which two men were moving. They were Papamanoli and Petros. Papamanoli was undressing and preparing for bed, while Petros was standing, a candle in one hand, reading a blue paper which looked like a telegram. After he had read it, he handed it to the priest, who instantly held it to the candle flame, let it burn down to his fingers, and stamped out the ashes underfoot. A gesture made towards my room showed me that the two men were speaking about me, and made me think that this was perhaps the telegram which the priest had received the evening before while we were dining at the house of his cousin, Madame Smirneo.
Next morning I was awakened by a humming
He vanished, and returned in a moment with a piece of the same matter, but less brittle and of a greenish hue. He went through the same gestures, but this time the flame was long and very smoky, and hecomplacently let it burn. That, thought I, is probably the sign of really good quality. Now I knew how to buy hashish. I declared myself satisfied, and we settled on the quantity I was to buy, four hundred
okes
(six hundred kilograms), at the price of twenty francs the
oke
.
‘Now,’ said he, ‘we’ll go and fetch the goods from the warehouse where they are stored.’
A servant girl brought us little wax torches, and two hefty workmen armed with huge cudgels accompanied us. Petros opened a vaulted door, behind which a stone staircase led down into the cellars. A musty smell of damp rose from this underground passage, and almost at once we came to a crypt hewn out of the living rock. In this vault, which was circular in form, sacks were piled up; this was the hashish crop of the current year. The two workmen picked out the number of sacks which corresponded to the weight I had ordered, put them in the middle of the floor, then fell upon them with their sticks, in order to break up the contents and reduce them to dust.
We must have formed a strange group. First there was Papamanoli, the priest, in his flowing black robes, and beside him Petros, holding in his hand a piece of white paper, into which he put a sample from each sack. Each of us held aloft a little wax taper in order to give light to the men who were beating so furiously on the bulging sacks. Our shadows danced fantastically along the vaulted roof, and the bats, panic-stricken and blinded by the light, bumped their horrid soft bodies against us, making the flames of our candles flicker. I shall never forget this scene, though the others seemed quite unconscious of its picturesque quality. Petros poured the different samples from his paper into a little bag, which he gave me as indicating the average quality of my hashish. The sacks were then carried into a barn, so that the icy cold of the night should prevent the powdered hashish from coagulating afresh.
I went off to my room, escorted by the ugly little niece and one of the handsome young servant girls carrying water, towels and everything needful for the comfort of a guest. I wished my ugly little interpreter at the devil so that I should be left alone with the comely handmaiden, for I felt the need for ethnographical documentation, and the opportunity seemed excellent, but alas…
The hand-woven linen sheets were icy cold, and I could not get them warmed. All the happenings of the day kept going round and round inmy head, and the hashish I had breathed in in the crypt had set my imagination afire. I tossed and turned, and finally got up. My room was next to vast attics, certainly the servants’ quarters could not be far off. I could always have a look. So off I went groping my way through the darkness, knocking my head against great strings of onions hanging from the beams, and bumping into dusty objects, until suddenly beneath my feet I saw a ray of light, and voices came up from the floor below. I lay down and placed my eye against this crack in the old flooring, and I saw a rustic room with whitewashed walls, about which two men were moving. They were Papamanoli and Petros. Papamanoli was undressing and preparing for bed, while Petros was standing, a candle in one hand, reading a blue paper which looked like a telegram. After he had read it, he handed it to the priest, who instantly held it to the candle flame, let it burn down to his fingers, and stamped out the ashes underfoot. A gesture made towards my room showed me that the two men were speaking about me, and made me think that this was perhaps the telegram which the priest had received the evening before while we were dining at the house of his cousin, Madame Smirneo.
Next morning I was awakened by a humming
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