selves in a contrary practice, yet the more conscientious are so strict, especially if they have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca,4 that they hold it unlawful not only to taste wine, but to press grapes for the making of it, to buy or to sell it, or even to maintain themselves with the money arising by the sale of that liquor. The Persians, however, as well as the Turks, are very fond of wine; and if one asks them how it comes to pass that they venture to drink it, when it is so directly forbidden by their religion, they answer, that it is with them as with the Christians, whose religion prohibits drunkenness and whoredom as great sins, and who glory, notwithstanding, some in debauching girls and married women, and others in drinking to excess.5 It has been a question whether coffee comes not under the above-mentioned prohibition,6 because the fumes of it have some effect on the imagination. This drink, which was first publicly used at Aden in Arabia Felix, about the middle of the ninth century of the Hejra, and thence gradually introduced into Mecca, Medina, Egypt, Syria, and other parts of the Levant, has been the occasion of great disputes and disorders, having been sometimes publicly condemned and forbidden, and again declared lawful and allowed.7 At present the use of coffee is generally tolerated, if not granted, as is that of tobacco, though the more religious make a scruple of taking the latter, not only because it inebriates, but also out of respect to a traditional saying of their prophet (which, if it could be made out to be his, would prove him a prophet indeed), "That in the latter days there should be men who should bear the name of Moslems, but should not be really such; and that they should smoke a certain weed, which should be called TOBACCO." However, the eastern nations are generally so addicted to both, that they say, "A dish of coffee and a pipe of tobacco are a complete entertainment;" and the Persians have a proverb that coffee without tobacco is meat without salt.1 Opium and beng (which latter is the leaves of hemp in pills or conserve) are also by the rigid Mohammedans esteemed unlawful, though not mentioned in the Korân, because they intoxicate and disturb the understanding as wine does, and in a more extraordinary manner: yet these drugs are now commonly taken in the east; but they who are addicted to them are generally looked upon as debauchees.2 Several stories have been told as the occasion of Mohammed's prohibiting the drinking of wine:3 but the true reasons are given in the Korân, viz., because the ill qualities of that liquor surpass its good ones, the common effects thereof being quarrels and disturbances in company, and neglect, or at least indecencies, in the performance of religious duties.4 For these reasons it was that the priests were, by the Levitical law, forbidden to drink wine or strong drink when they entered the tabernacle,5 and that the Nazarites6 and Rechabites,7 and