a species of opiate, in great use throughout the east, for drowning cares and inspiring joy.—This by the Persians is called beng; by the Arabs, effrar, corruptly affaral, and affarth; by the Turks, benigte, and vulgarly called maftack; by the European naturalists, bangu or bange.—It is the leaf of a kind of wild hemp, growing in the countries of the Levant. Levant; it differs little, either as to leaf or seed, from our hemp, except in size. Some have mistaken it for a species of althaea.

There are divers manners of preparing it, in different countries. Olearius describes the method used in Persia. Mr Sale tells us, that among the Arabs, the leaf is made into pills, or conserves. But the most distinct account is that given by Alexander Maurocordato, counsellor and physician of the Ottoman Porte, in a letter to Wedelius. According to this author, bangue is made of the leaves of wild hemp, dried in the shade, then ground to powder; put into a pot wherein butter has been kept; set in an oven till it begin to terrify; then taken out, and pulverized again; thus to be used occasionally, as much at a time as will lie on the point of a knife. Such is the Turkish bangue.—The effects of this drug are, to confound the understanding; set the imagination loose; induce a kind of folly and forgetfulness, wherein all cares are left, and joy and gaiety take place thereof. Bangue, in reality, is a succedaneum to wine, and obtains in those countries where Mahometanism is established; which prohibiting the use of that liquor absolutely, the poor musulmans are forced to have recourse to succedanea, to rouse their spirits. The principal are opium and this bangue. As to the opinion among Europeans, that the Turks prepare themselves for battle by a dose of bangue, which rouses their courage, and drives them, with eagerness, to certain death, Dr Maurocordato affirms us, that it is a popular error: the Turks think they are then going assuredly to receive the crown of martyrdom; and would not, for any consideration, lose the merit of it, which they would do by eating the bangue, as being held unlawful by their apostle, among other things which intoxicate.