In 780 M.E. very severe ordinances were passed in Egypt against this practice of indulging in hemp. The Djoneina garden was rooted up, and all those convicted of the use of the drug were subjected to the extraction of their teeth. But in 792 M.E. the custom re-established itself with more than original vigour. A vivid picture is given by Makrisi of the vice and its victims:——“As a general consequence, great corruption of sentiments and manners ensued, modesty disappeared, every base and evil passion was openly indulged in, and nobility of external form alone remained to those infatuated beings.” In the “Sisters of Old,” some further memoranda will be found of the early history of this extraordinary narcotic. Not only was its intoxicating power, but many other properties—some true, some fabulous—were known at the above periods. The contrary qualities of the plant—its stimulating and sedative effects—are dwelt on:——“They at first exhilarate the spirits, cause cheerfulness, give colour to the complexion, bring on intoxication, excite the imagination into the most rapturous ideas, produce thirst, increase appetite, excite concupiscence; afterwards, the sedative effects begin to preside, the spirits sink, the vision darkens and weakens, and madness, melancholy, fearfulness, dropsy, and such like distempers are the sequel.” Mirza Abdul Russac says of it: “It produces a ravenous appetite and constipation, arrests the secretions, except that of the liver, excites wild imagining, a sensation of ascending, forgetfulness of all that happens during its use, and such mental exaltation that the beholders attribute it to supernatural inspiration.” To which he also adds: “The inexperienced, on first taking it, are often senseless for a day, some go mad, others are known to die.” Whether for the purpose of increasing its power, or for what other reason we know not, in India the seeds of Datura are mixed with hemp, in compounding some of the confections, as well as the powder of _nux vomica_. This is, however, exceptional, neither of these substances entering into the composition of the Majoon of Bengal any more than does corrosive sublimate form a proportion of the pills in general use by the opium-eater of Constantinople.