_Hashisha_, and _Kief._—The plant called Hashisha is the African hemp plant; it grows in all the gardens; and is reared in the plains at Marocco, for the manufacture of twine: but in most parts of the country it is cultivated for the extraordinary and pleasing voluptuous vacuity of mind which it produces in those who smoke it: unlike the intoxication from wine, a fascinating stupor pervades the mind, and the dreams are agreeable. The kief, which is the flower and seeds of the plant, is the strongest, and a pipe of it half the size of a common English tobacco-pipe, is sufficient to intoxicate. The infatuation of those who use it is such, that they cannot exist without it. The kief is often pounded, and mixed with (_El Majune_), an invigorating confection, which is sold at an enormous price; a piece of this as big as a walnut will for a time entirely deprive a man of all reason and intellect; they prefer it to opium, from the voluptuous sensations which it never fails to produce. Wine or brandy, they say, does not stand in competition with it. The Hashisha, or leaves of the plant, are dried and cut like tobacco, with which they are smoked, in very small pipes; but when the person wishes to indulge in the sensual stupor it occasions, he smokes the Hashisha pure, and in less than half an hour it operates; the person under its influence is said to experience pleasing images: he fancies himself in company with beautiful women; he dreams that he is an emperor, or a bashaw, and that the world is at his nod. There are other plants which possess a similar exhilirating quality, among which is a species of the Palma Christi, the nuts of which, mixed with any kind of food, affect a person for three hours, and then pass off. These they often use when they wish to discover the mind of a person, or what occupies his thoughts. _Snobar._—This is a plant much used by the tanners in the preparation of leather: it grows on Mount Atlas and about Tetuan. _Lotus._—The Lotus, or water lily, grows in the rivers and streams of El Garb; it is called by the Arabs Nufar. The lotus, or nymphæa lotus, has often been mistaken for a very different plant, called by the ancients _Lotus_, or _Rhamnus Lotus_, and which served formerly for food to a certain people in Africa, thence named Lotophagi; this plant, which is a shrub similar in appearance to the wild jujube, or buckthorn, is called by the Arabs _Seedra_, and grows about the Atlas mountains east of Marocco and Terodant. It has been described by Mr. Mungo Park in his Travels in Africa. _Mallows._—This herb is much used by the Arabian doctors; and the fruit is eaten by the Arabs as antifebrile: the generical name is Kubbaiza.[117] The garden Jew’s mallow, called _Melokia_, is also much esteemed as a strong incentive to venery.