Read Online Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale by Henry de Monfreid - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Henry de Monfreid
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activity which filled the house like the murmur of a beehive. In the barn into which we had carried the sacks, a crowd of workers were going to and fro through a thick dust.
In the middle of the room was a sort of table consisting of a very fine metal sieve set up on four legs. On it the hashish was being thrown in spadefuls. A big sheet was wrapped round the outside of the table legs to prevent the fine powder which fell from the sieve from blowing away. Women with their heads swathed in handkerchiefs were spreading out and sifting the powder. After this, men shovelled it into an enormous iron basin in order that it should be well mixed.
Madame Petros was sitting before a sewing-machine, feverishly running up little white linen bags. These she passed to a woman who stamped an elephant on them with a rubber stamp. She in turn passed them to a third woman who filled them, weighed them with great care, and finally tied them up. They were then put in neat piles into a great press. When there were a certain number between the steel plates, a muscular workman tightened the vice and the sacks flattened out slowlyuntil they were like square pancakes four centimetres thick. These pancakes were hard as wax; this is the form in which hashish is exported, and the elephant was Petros’ trade-mark. From time to time he himself lent a hand to the brawny fellow who was working the press. I looked at the latter with interest. He was very tall; I could not see his face, as his head was covered with a towel with small eye-holes bored in it, but his eyes seemed vaguely familiar, and suddenly I realized that they were the eyes of Papamanoli. At this moment, having finished, he laughingly removed his improvised cowl freeing his luxuriant beard and his hair, which had been rolled on top of his head. This priest seemed to take everything as a matter of course, and nobody seemed surprised to see him helping at a busy moment.
This hashish powder had gradually excited the men and women working with it, and they began to sing at the tops of their voices, and joke and laugh like mad things over nothing. I took part in this crazy gaiety like the rest, and even the plain little niece from Tripolis grew quite flirtatious. Fortunately, the work was soon completed, or I don’t know how it would all have ended. Outside, a plumber soldered the zinc linings of the packing-cases in which the hashish pancakes were to be packed.
While the work was being finished, the women servants had been setting up a table in the shade of a great walnut tree in front of the barn. They had put on their Sunday dresses as if it were a holiday, and soon masters and servants sat down together, patriarchal fashion, to eat. It was a Pantagruellian repast. There was a sheep roasted whole, and innumerable chickens, trout, etc. It made me think of the prodigious meals of the Middle Ages of which the old chroniclers tell us. But there was nothing of an orgy about it; those simple people had remained too close to nature to be anything but modest and decent.
For those who are interested I shall describe briefly how the hashish comes to the state in which I had first seen it, powdered and stored in sacks in the cellar. The fields in which the hemp grows are carefully weeded and all the male plants are pulled out. The female plants which remain cannot therefore bear seeds, and the result is that the leaves become fully charged with a resinous matter. The secretion of this sticky substance is further increased by breaking off the tops of the plants as they grow. When the first leaves, that is to say the lowest ones, turnyellow, the plants are carefully cut down about four inches from the ground, so as not to soil them with earth or sand. Then the crop is dried in the shade and stacked in barns. Some growers only keep the leaves, for the stems are of no value whatever. On very cold winter days when there is a keen frost and the waxen matter secreted by the leaves has become brittle as
In the middle of the room was a sort of table consisting of a very fine metal sieve set up on four legs. On it the hashish was being thrown in spadefuls. A big sheet was wrapped round the outside of the table legs to prevent the fine powder which fell from the sieve from blowing away. Women with their heads swathed in handkerchiefs were spreading out and sifting the powder. After this, men shovelled it into an enormous iron basin in order that it should be well mixed.
Madame Petros was sitting before a sewing-machine, feverishly running up little white linen bags. These she passed to a woman who stamped an elephant on them with a rubber stamp. She in turn passed them to a third woman who filled them, weighed them with great care, and finally tied them up. They were then put in neat piles into a great press. When there were a certain number between the steel plates, a muscular workman tightened the vice and the sacks flattened out slowlyuntil they were like square pancakes four centimetres thick. These pancakes were hard as wax; this is the form in which hashish is exported, and the elephant was Petros’ trade-mark. From time to time he himself lent a hand to the brawny fellow who was working the press. I looked at the latter with interest. He was very tall; I could not see his face, as his head was covered with a towel with small eye-holes bored in it, but his eyes seemed vaguely familiar, and suddenly I realized that they were the eyes of Papamanoli. At this moment, having finished, he laughingly removed his improvised cowl freeing his luxuriant beard and his hair, which had been rolled on top of his head. This priest seemed to take everything as a matter of course, and nobody seemed surprised to see him helping at a busy moment.
This hashish powder had gradually excited the men and women working with it, and they began to sing at the tops of their voices, and joke and laugh like mad things over nothing. I took part in this crazy gaiety like the rest, and even the plain little niece from Tripolis grew quite flirtatious. Fortunately, the work was soon completed, or I don’t know how it would all have ended. Outside, a plumber soldered the zinc linings of the packing-cases in which the hashish pancakes were to be packed.
While the work was being finished, the women servants had been setting up a table in the shade of a great walnut tree in front of the barn. They had put on their Sunday dresses as if it were a holiday, and soon masters and servants sat down together, patriarchal fashion, to eat. It was a Pantagruellian repast. There was a sheep roasted whole, and innumerable chickens, trout, etc. It made me think of the prodigious meals of the Middle Ages of which the old chroniclers tell us. But there was nothing of an orgy about it; those simple people had remained too close to nature to be anything but modest and decent.
For those who are interested I shall describe briefly how the hashish comes to the state in which I had first seen it, powdered and stored in sacks in the cellar. The fields in which the hemp grows are carefully weeded and all the male plants are pulled out. The female plants which remain cannot therefore bear seeds, and the result is that the leaves become fully charged with a resinous matter. The secretion of this sticky substance is further increased by breaking off the tops of the plants as they grow. When the first leaves, that is to say the lowest ones, turnyellow, the plants are carefully cut down about four inches from the ground, so as not to soil them with earth or sand. Then the crop is dried in the shade and stacked in barns. Some growers only keep the leaves, for the stems are of no value whatever. On very cold winter days when there is a keen frost and the waxen matter secreted by the leaves has become brittle as
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