On leaving the talisman-monger’s we went about our shopping in the Meccan bazaars, my guide pointing out to me the places of interest on the way. He grew excited when we passed a certain coffee-house, from within whose doors, as he assured me, he had escaped from himself into the bosom of the Beloved more times than he could count. “There are better ways of ascending into heaven, yá-Moulai,” he exclaimed, ecstatically, “than by being buried underground!” He paused as if to give me the opportunity of begging him to explain the connection; but all I said in reply was that a Tower of Silence would scarcely suit one whose tongue was for ever on the wag. “’Tis true,” he affirmed, in no way disconcerted, “the birds of prey are not to my liking. I would discourse of the parrot of mysteries, that hath opened to me the gates of Paradise more than once. If your Excellency would acquaint himself with----” I interrupted him, saying: “Are you speaking of hashísh, my friend? If you are, let me tell you that I have no wish to renew my experience of the drug.” And when I hurried on, he drew a deep breath, but whether of disappointment or of relief I couldn’t make out. “In that coffee-house, yá-Moulai,” he said at last, “you might have tasted of every narcotic of the drowsy East: of hashísh, the master Seyyid, or the Parrot of Mysteries, an acquired taste; of bang, a most potent liberator of thought; and, lastly, of opium, which is, as we Persians have it, the Antidote, the healer of every ill except the one it engenders. I was once a well-seasoned vafurí (opium-smoker), and could discourse of mysteries more eloquently than any dervish. My nose would grow wet every time I smoked a pipe of hashísh and my imagination bear me on its wings to the seventh heaven, or plunge me into the lowest hell. Those were days of spiritual intoxication--yá-Allah. What cured me of drug-bibbing was the dread of remaining in the abode of the damned.” He sauntered on, telling over the beads of his rosary. “Never,” he cried suddenly, “shall I forget the last pipe of hashísh I smoked.” I followed him up on the scent of a story. “Come,” said I, “tell me your tale, and have done with it.”