In some instances, the whole expence lies with the _hookah-burdar_, who receives such a sum as may, besides his wages, include tobacco, _gools_, (or fire-balls,) and _chillums_, (or sockets for receiving the _towah_, or tile,) on which the prepared tobacco is applied. Some even provide the _snakes_, or pliable conductors. With respect to the tobacco used for smoking, ‘_tot homines, tot sententiæ_;’ in that particular few are to be found of the same opinion: and among those that are, probably more than half are under the grossest deception. The little village of Bilsah, in the Maharrattah country, has been long celebrated, and it should seem not without reason, for the fragrance of the tobacco raised around it. But the quantity of tobacco sold annually throughout Bengal, where it produces from thirty to sixty, and even eighty rupees per maund, (if ascertained to be genuine,) is known to exceed, full an hundred fold, the amount of any crop ever raised at Bilsah. The substitutes are various, but one kind, raised in the _Bundelcund_ district, supplies the greater portion; many, indeed, are of opinion that it is not inferior. May not its excellence be owing to the practice, common in that quarter, of sprinkling the plants at harvest time with a solution of molasses? We know that many fruits yield but little of their flavor, until excited by the saccharine acid: the raspberry may serve to coroborate my position. I have known that very cheap kind of tobacco, the _Cuggareah_, which ordinarily sells for about four rupees per maund, (of 82 lb.) rendered so mellow, and so fragrant, by being worked up with molasses, and kept in close vessels for some months, as absolutely to be admired even by persons who prided themselves on never smoking any but the true Bilsah! The usual mode of preparing tobacco for the _hookah_, is by first chopping it very small; then, adding ripe plantains, molasses, or raw sugar, together with some cinnamon, and other aromatics; keeping the mass, which resembles an electuary, in close vessels. When about to be used, it is again worked up well; some, at that time, add a little tincture of musk, or a few grains of that perfume, others prefer pouring a solution of it, or a little rose water, down the _snake_, at the moment the _hookah_ is introduced: in either case, the fragrance of the tobacco is effectually superceded; giving ample scope for the _hookah-burdar_ to serve up rank _mundungus_, (as bad tobacco is termed,) in lieu of the supposed, or perhaps the real, _Bilsah_.