Hashish

by Henry De Monfreid

  Next morning I was awakened by a humming activity which filled the house like the murmur of a beehive. In the barn into which we had carried the sacks, a crowd of workers were going to and fro through a thick dust.

  In the middle of the room was a sort of table consisting of a very fine metal sieve set up on four legs. On it the hashish was being thrown in spadefuls. A big sheet was wrapped round the outside of the table legs to prevent the fine powder which fell from the sieve from blowing away. Women with their heads swathed in handkerchiefs were spreading out and sifting the powder. After this, men shovelled it into an enormous iron basin in order that it should be well mixed.

  Madame Petros was sitting before a sewing-machine, feverishly running up little white linen bags. These she passed to a woman who stamped an elephant on them with a rubber stamp. She in turn passed them to a third woman who filled them, weighed them with great care, and finally tied them up. They were then put in neat piles into a great press. When there were a certain number between the steel plates, a muscular workman tightened the vice and the sacks flattened out slowly until they were like square pancakes four centimetres thick. These pancakes were hard as wax; this is the form in which hashish is exported, and the elephant was Petros’ trade-mark. From time to time he himself lent a hand to the brawny fellow who was working the press. I looked at the latter with interest. He was very tall; I could not see his face, as his head was covered with a towel with small eye-holes bored in it, but his eyes seemed vaguely familiar, and suddenly I realized that they were the eyes of Papamanoli. At this moment, having finished, he laughingly removed his improvised cowl freeing his luxuriant beard and his hair, which had been rolled on top of his head. This priest seemed to take everything as a matter of course, and nobody seemed surprised to see him helping at a busy moment.

  This hashish powder had gradually excited the men and women working with it, and they began to sing at the tops of their voices, and joke and laugh like mad things over nothing. I took part in this crazy gaiety like the rest, and even the plain little niece from Tripolis grew quite flirtatious. Fortunately, the work was soon completed, or I don’t know how it would all have ended. Outside, a plumber soldered the zinc linings of the packing-cases in which the hashish pancakes were to be packed.

  While the work was being finished, the women servants had been setting up a table in the shade of a great walnut tree in front of the barn. They had put on their Sunday dresses as if it were a holiday, and soon masters and servants sat down together, patriarchal fashion, to eat. It was a Pantagruellian repast. There was a sheep roasted whole, and innumerable chickens, trout, etc. It made me think of the prodigious meals of the Middle Ages of which the old chroniclers tell us. But there was nothing of an orgy about it; those simple people had remained too close to nature to be anything but modest and decent.

  For those who are interested I shall describe briefly how the hashish comes to the state in which I had first seen it, powdered and stored in sacks in the cellar. The fields in which the hemp grows are carefully weeded and all the male plants are pulled out. The female plants which remain cannot therefore bear seeds, and the result is that the leaves become fully charged with a resinous matter. The secretion of this sticky substance is further increased by breaking off the tops of the plants as they grow. When the first leaves, that is to say the lowest ones, turn yellow, the plants are carefully cut down about four inches from the ground, so as not to soil them with earth or sand. Then the crop is dried in the shade and stacked in barns. Some growers only keep the leaves, for the stems are of no value whatever. On very cold winter days when there is a keen frost and the waxen matter secreted by the leaves has become brittle as resin, the dried plants are broken up by rubbing them between two sheets of canvas. This gives a dust made up of broken leaves and the resin which is the active part of hashish. This resin gives the powder the property of forming a sort of cake when pressed, and of softening when heated.

  All the farms in this district prepared hashish; it was their chief industry. Each estate had its brand, quoted on the market, and there were good and bad years, exactly as for wines.

  My eight cases were now soldered and nailed up ready for transport. They represented all my worldly wealth. After a sketchy dinner, for you may suppose no one was hungry after the midday feast, I retired to sleep the sleep of the just. Hardly was I in my room, however, when I developed an intense thirst. There was no drinking-water to be seen, so I went down to the dining-room in search of some. When I reached the glass door, I saw Petros sitting at his desk, with Papamanoli standing beside him. They were probably writing out a telegram, for several telegraph forms were scattered over the table. I entered without warning, and immediately Petros instinctively pushed a piece of blotting-paper over what he had written. So it was something he wanted to keep secret, at least from me. I pretended not to have noticed anything, took the water-bottle, said good night and retired.

  What did all this mean? I marshalled the facts:

  1. A telegram had been received by Papamanoli at the Piraeus two days before.

  2. He had shown it to Petros.

  3. Today they were sending a reply (for Petros’ unconscious gesture showed that what he was writing concerned me).

  I stayed awake half the night, wondering what it was all about. I felt alternately optimistic and pessimistic, and had great difficulty in controlling my imagination.

  Next morning I was up at dawn. The household was still asleep except for two bare-footed servant girls who were lighting a wood fire in the enormous kitchen chimney. I walked into the dining-room, and went straight up to the desk at which Petros had been writing. It was not locked, and amid the litter of papers I found the clean blotting-paper with which he had covered the freshly written telegram. Most of the letters were there, backwards of course, but as it was in Greek I could not understand the message. I tore off the sheet and slipped it into my pocket. Later I should see. I had some difficulty in believing that such kindly, hospitable people were playing a trick on me, and I did not feel very happy in acting in this underhand way, but I had to look out for myself. After all, I was in their power, and what did I really know about them? It was already something to have been put on my guard. With a little luck, everything would soon be made clear. Often victory or defeat depends on a straw. But when one is in the position in which I found myself, one is working in the darkness, guided only by impulses, instincts and feelings, and one has to be doubly vigilant, and not despise the smallest indication.

  At seven o’clock we went off to the station, this time in the sumptuous victoria of the ugly niece. The whole family kissed me good-bye, the niece with a dark blush showing through her oily skin. I promised to come back with my wife and children to spend a whole summer, and so on, but I was thankful when the departure of the train put an end to these embarrassing demonstrations. I was once more alone with Papamanoli, but I now knew about thirty words of Greek, so we could carry on a rudimentary conversation, helped out by nods and becks and wreathed smiles. The van in which my cases had been put had been fastened to the tail of our little train, and each time we stopped in a big station Papamanoli mounted guard to see that in the manoeuvring it was not unhooked and left behind. At the station of Athens, we were told that it was against the regulations for a goods wagon to be attached like that to a passenger train. Papamanoli vanished into the railway company’s offices, and after much argument and a delay of twenty minutes, we were allowed to go on.

  When we reached the Piraeus, the kirios Caravan was waiting on the platform, thinner than ever. I gave him the fortatiki, the receipt for my eight cases, and he disappeared into the crowd. We went out into the station yard to await events. Two barrows had been left just opposite the door of the Rapid Transport, and ten minutes later, porters were piling the cases on to them. Off they went to the quay, which was barely fifty yards away. A boat was right in under the wall, and with a silent rapidity eloquent of long practice, the cases were lowered into it, and wit
h a few strokes of the oars the boat vanished behind an adjacent steamer.

  All this had occupied exactly enough time to allow the officer to stroll to the other end of the quay. He had stopped a hundred yards farther up, and, his back still turned to us, was chatting to some of the men I had seen in the café during our first interview with Caravan. When he turned round, everything was over.

  I had no doubt that this accommodating customs officer knew on which side his bread was buttered.

  At nine o’clock that evening, I had in my pocket the bill of lading for my goods shipped on board the Aris, bound for Marseilles, and an insurance policy into the bargain. The manifest bore the description ‘hemp flowers’. After all, that was a good enough definition and the customs at Marseilles knew perfectly well that it meant hashish. The shipping of drugs was authorized at Marseilles and at Djibouti, so there was no need to dissimulate the nature of the merchandise. But this euphemism had been tacitly adopted, so as not to attract the attention of people stupidly hampered by prejudices, and who might interfere with this profitable trafficking. This designation had been in use for a long time. Probably when they started, certain Nosey Parkers had got themselves into trouble by being over-zealous in verifying the nature of the goods. Those who succeeded them, realizing that any attacks of conscience would only result in their losing their jobs, passed the ‘hemp flowers’ as such, without any further investigation, and this commerce became an accepted routine.

  I took a passage on board Le Calédonien on which I had come. I expected to be at Marseilles before the Aris, which had to call in at several ports on the way. The head steward in the third-class once more gave me a job. Papamanoli came on board with me, and before leaving gave me the address of a friend at Port Said. He insisted on the importance of seeing him and arranging with him for the disposal of my hashish in Egypt. I got the impression that there were grave reasons for this insistence, but that the priest felt it was not for him to explain. I felt strongly tempted to tell him the story of the blotting-paper, and ask him straight out the meaning of all these telegrams, but I checked the impulse. All the same, I continued to believe in his integrity. I felt that there was a mystery into which he could not, would not, or dared not initiate me, but I felt just as strongly that it was impossible for these people who had received me so frankly and kindly to have arranged to play me some dirty trick.

  Two days after the ship left harbour, when the passengers began to make tentative efforts at conversation with each other, I got to know a Greek who spoke French fluently. I copied out the words which were printed backwards on the blotting-paper, and asked him to translate them for me. This did not give me the key to the mystery as I had hoped, except that I learned that the message was addressed to Cairo. Here is the translation:

  ‘… Cairo’

  Deal concluded… Caravan… shipping Marseilles… by… maritime… we do not know…’

  TWELVE

  My First Contact with Egypt

  As I landed at Marseilles I had the pleasure of seeing the Arts come into port. I immediately concluded the necessary formalities for the transshipment of my goods on to a Messageries’ ship. I met with some difficulty, for this article had never been shipped openly and regularly in such large quantities. The employees at the offices were nonplussed and consulted Monsieur Restoul himself. He received me with an air of offended dignity, and treated me with cold suspicion, but in the end he was forced to admit that I was quite in order with the customs. He only insisted that the designation ‘hemp flowers’ should be kept, so that the awful word ‘hashish’ need not be pronounced in the offices of the most virtuous of companies. Besides, that would avoid putting temptation in the way of the crew, for they were infinitely less virtuous, and fully aware of the money to be made out of hashish smuggling. To make assurance doubly sure, I got permission to have my eight cases put in the hold for valuables, of which only the commander had a key. Then I booked a passage on the same boat.

  We called at Port Said, where we had to remain a whole day in order to coal. I lost no time in going ashore and looking for the man who had been recommended by Papamanoli. On the wharf, just outside the customs house, stood an athletic Sudanese, who searched us all thoroughly, even examining the thickness of the soles of our shoes. I went straight to the address given. It was a sort of eating-house, with dusty cakes and greasy delicacies exposed in glass cases. A European wearing an apron dozed behind a counter. I showed him the address and he seemed to start broad awake, staring at me in astonishment, as if I were a phantom. Then, fishing out a sleepy Arab from behind a screen, he sent him to fetch the man I had asked for, one Alexandras Colloucouvaros. To while away the time of waiting, he brought me a cup of Turkish coffee, but I didn’t say a word; it seemed more prudent not to. In a quarter of an hour my man arrived, all out of breath. He apologized for not having come to see me on board.

  ‘So you knew I was on the Chili?’

  ‘Not exactly, but my cousin wrote that you were coming to see me, and I supposed you would come by her. I expect you have…brought something?’

  ‘No, absolutely nothing, at least for the moment.’

  ‘Oh, all right, all right… I just thought… But let us go for a drive.’

  The rickety old carriage with its doddering horse and tarboosh-crowned coachman was admirably adapted for a private conversation. We went along a road which wound through the Arab quarters of the town, a part of Port Said unknown to tourists. Sometimes, as we passed the end of a narrow street swarming with natives, we got a whiff of the now familiar odour which I had first smelt when Petros burnt his sample. Hashish is smoked in all the Arab cafés, by the native policemen as well as by the coolies from the docks. The proprietor has only to pay a small back-hander, and discreetly denounce one of his suppliers now and then: in return he is left alone.

  We stopped before a café which was very crowded, but where most of the customers seemed to take nothing but a glass of water: They sat in little groups; some of them seemed to be discussing business, while others watched the world go by in silent depression, having nothing better to do. Only on some tables were cups of Turkish coffee, but on all were narghiles which were kept stoked up by native waiters. Such cafés are to be found in every Egyptian town frequented by Greeks; they serve as Labour Exchanges for all sorts of mysterious transactions. If you want to do business with a Greek, it is here you must look for him, for the Greeks of Egypt live in the cafés from midday to midnight.

  We went in and sat down at a table. My companion uttered familiar greetings all round, then asked for a narghile. He seemed to fall into a brown study as he sat there inhaling the smoke and fingering his amber-beaded rosary. He blended into his surroundings, becoming exactly like all the other people there, while I was acutely uncomfortable, with the agonizing self-consciousness of someone trying very unsuccessfully to appear at his ease. Of course there was not the slightest smell of hashish here, any more than in an Arab boui-boui. If anyone had even had the bad taste to pronounce the forbidden word, I believe that they would all have turned into pillars of salt. All the same, every single one of them got his living from trafficking in hashish, either as a retail seller, or as a small-scale smuggler who haunted the liners; they expended prodigious quantities of complicated ideas in order to obtain a very modest result. In a word, they were people who were too lazy, cowardly or sensual to do a regular job of work, preferring to live in this precarious fashion. One good deal brought them enough to live a lotus-eating life for several weeks on the terrace of their favourite café, taking no thought for the morrow.

  Alexandros seemed to me to be this type of man. All the same, if I had been told to come to him, and if he had any connexion with those busy active people I had seen in Greece, he must be worth more than those outcasts of society who exhibited their laziness and uselessness before my eyes. I was much amused at the contemptuous way he spoke of them, for he resembled them as one pea resembles another. He warned me of the danger of confiding th
e smallest deal to any of them, for they were all police spies, when it was worth their while. In a word, I mustn’t speak of my affairs to anybody except himself, and he would put me in touch with serious buyers. It was agreed that we should meet at Suez when I came back with my cargo on the 18th August. I showed a certain nerve in fixing this date, for how could I tell how long it would take me to come up the twelve hundred and sixty miles of the Red Sea against the north-west winds in a twelve-ton sailing ship?

  The liner had resumed her voyage towards the south, and steamed slowly between the deserted banks of the canal. At the end of my table at meals sat a badly-dressed fellow; taciturn and gloomy as if he were a new passenger who knew nobody. He must have come on at Port Said, for I had never seen him before, yet he did not look like a passenger either, for he always had his suitcase beside him. He was the electrician who was to take charge of the spotlight in the bows of the ship. I began speaking to this depressed-looking creature, and he answered me readily enough with his mouth full, cutting his bread with a pocket-knife the while. He was an old Italian, rather like Victor Emmanuel in the face, and he had been ‘doing the canal’ the last fifteen years. It is always interesting to talk to old people, and I was sure I could learn many things from him. After dinner I gave him a cigar, and invited him to have a drink with me. When the atmosphere was sufficiently warm and friendly I sent a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling and said, falsely casual: