"Tea and tobacco are alike seductive, delicious, and deleterious. The two indulgences will, perhaps, become equally necessary to the English world. It is high treason to the English national feeling to say a word against tea, which is now so universally recognized as a national beverage that people forget it comes from China, and that it is both alien and heathen. Still, I mean no offence when I put tea in the same category with Tobacco. Now, who thinks of lecturing us on the costliness of tea? And yet it is a mere superfluity. The habit of taking it as we do is unknown across the Channel, and was quite unknown amongst ourselves a very little time ago, when English people were no less proud of themselves and their customs than they are now, and perhaps with equally good reason. A friend of mine tells me that he smokes every day, at a cost of about sixpence a-week. Now, I would like to know in what other way so much enjoyment is to be bought for sixpence. Fancy the satisfaction of spending sixpence a-week in wine! It is well enough to preach about the selfishness of this expenditure; but we all spend more selfishly, and we all love pleasure, and I should very much like to see that cynic whose pleasures cost less than sixpence a-week." [Illustration: Egyptian pipes.] The Egyptian pipes, especially those of modern date are exceedingly fanciful in shape and resemble somewhat the pipes used by the Persians. Many of them are made of clay and are sold very cheap.[54] The Chinese use a variety of pipes but all of them have small bowls for the tobacco. Some of their pipes are made of brass and attached to the pipe is a receptacle for water, so as to cool the smoke before it passes into the mouth. The Japanese use both copper and silver pipes, most of them similar in shape and size to those used by the Chinese. [Footnote 54: Watlin says of smoking in Egypt: "Tobacco is tolerated, and seems to become more common again, though a smoker is generally disliked and not allowed to perform the part of Imam or rehearse, of the prayers, before a congregation. The greater part of the people, however, detest and condemn still the use of tobacco, and I remember a Shaumar Bedawry who assured me that he would not carry that abominable herb on his Camel, even if a load of gold were given him."] [Illustration: Japanese pipes.] A writer says of smoking among the Japanese: