Persian and Arabic writers give, however, a fuller and more particular account of the early use of this substance. Makrisi treats of the hemp in his description of the ancient pleasure-grounds in the vicinity of Cairo. This quarter, after many vicissitudes, is now a mass of ruins. In it was situated a cultivated valley, named Djoneina, which was the theatre of all conceivable abominations. It was famous, above all, for the sale of the _Hasheesha_ or Haschisch, which is still consumed by certain of the populace, and from the consumption of which sprung those excesses which gave rise to the name of “assassin,” in the time of the Crusades. This author states that the oldest work in which hemp is noticed is a treatise by Hassan, who states that in the year of the Hegira 658, the Sheikh Djafar Shirazi, a monk of the order of Haider, learned from his master, the history of the discovery of hemp. Haider, the chief of ascetics and self-chasteners, lived in rigid privation on a mountain between Nishabor and Rama, where he established a monastery of Fakirs. Ten years he had spent in this retreat, without leaving it for a moment, till one burning summer’s day, when he departed alone to the fields. On his return, an air of joy and gaiety was imprinted on his countenance; he received the visits of his brethren, and encouraged their conversation. On being questioned, he stated that, struck by the aspect of a plant which danced in the heat as if with joy, while all the rest of the vegetable creation was torpid, he had gathered and eaten of its leaves. He led his companions to the spot—all ate, and all were similarly excited. A tincture of the hemp-leaf in wine or spirits, seems to have been the favourite formula in which the Sheikh Haider indulged himself. An Arab poet sings of Haider’s emerald cup—an evident allusion to the rich green colour of the tincture of the drug. The Sheikh survived the discovery ten years, and subsisted chiefly on this herb, and on his death his disciples, by his desire, planted an arbour in which it grew about his tomb. From this saintly sepulchre, the knowledge of the effects of hemp is stated to have spread into Khorasan. In Chaldea it was unknown until the Mahommedan year 728, during the reign of the Caliph Mostansir Billah. The kings of Ormus and Bahrein then introduced it into Chaldea, Syria, Egypt, and Turkey. In Khorasan, it seems that the date of the use of hemp is considered, notwithstanding the foregoing, to be far prior to Haider’s era. Biraslan, an Indian pilgrim, contemporary with Cosroes (whoever this same Cosroes may be, for it is a name often occurring, and applied as Cæsar or Czar to more than one generation), is stated to have introduced and diffused the custom through Khorasan and Yemen.