Green Squall
Well-known member
"That night, I made my first and last experience with charas. Curious as to the quality of the Indian drug, I bit off a piece of the sample I had just received. In Greece they had told me that only a dose of several grams (about the size of a hazelnut) produced any effect. I compromised on a morsel about the size of a lentil. An hour passed with no result whatsoever from the dose; I thought no more about it, and went to bed.
Towards three in the morning, I awoke with a nightmare sensation that I was dying. In the lights of the swinging lamp, the cabin seemed distorted. I had the impression that the ceiling lay beneath my bunk and that all the objects in the room were piled in a pyramid before my eyes. I struggled to rise, but I was powerless to stir; my bones had melted into a jellylike mass of muscles. Rapidly the objects about me lost their identity, resolved into geometric figures that tumbled and stretched rubber-like, ceaselessly changing in form and color. I felt as if my brain had split into two parts; one was going mad, and the other reduced to role of spectator. I noted the progress of the intoxication, powerless to intervene. An icy chill crept gradually up my arms and legs. This, I thought, must be the end. At that moment, I felt then saw a vague movement in the cabin. It was Youssof, one of my sailors, come to put wood on the fire. I managed to articulate "Boon" (Coffee).
The strangled tone alarmed the boy; he ran to bring Abdi. Between the two of them, they managed to pour down my throat a few spoonfuls of hot coffee. Instantly, in a violent spasm of nausea, I vomited the bit of charas I had swallowed. An hour later, I was myself again, though weak and dizzy from the experience.
- Henry De Monfreid from the book "Pearls, Arms and Hashish: Pages from the Life of a Red Sea Navigator."
Towards three in the morning, I awoke with a nightmare sensation that I was dying. In the lights of the swinging lamp, the cabin seemed distorted. I had the impression that the ceiling lay beneath my bunk and that all the objects in the room were piled in a pyramid before my eyes. I struggled to rise, but I was powerless to stir; my bones had melted into a jellylike mass of muscles. Rapidly the objects about me lost their identity, resolved into geometric figures that tumbled and stretched rubber-like, ceaselessly changing in form and color. I felt as if my brain had split into two parts; one was going mad, and the other reduced to role of spectator. I noted the progress of the intoxication, powerless to intervene. An icy chill crept gradually up my arms and legs. This, I thought, must be the end. At that moment, I felt then saw a vague movement in the cabin. It was Youssof, one of my sailors, come to put wood on the fire. I managed to articulate "Boon" (Coffee).
The strangled tone alarmed the boy; he ran to bring Abdi. Between the two of them, they managed to pour down my throat a few spoonfuls of hot coffee. Instantly, in a violent spasm of nausea, I vomited the bit of charas I had swallowed. An hour later, I was myself again, though weak and dizzy from the experience.
- Henry De Monfreid from the book "Pearls, Arms and Hashish: Pages from the Life of a Red Sea Navigator."
