B581 <=> B583 [BTG XXXIII Beelzebub as hypnotist, p. 582]

“And so, my boy, I began my activities in the capacity of a physician-hypnotist, as I have already told you, in the center of the continent Asia, in various towns of Turkestan.

“I was first in the town of that part of Turkestan which later came to be called ‘Chinese Turkestan’ in contradistinction to that part of it which, from the time of its conquest by beings belonging to the large community Russia, has been called ‘Russian Turkestan.’

“There was a very great need in the towns of Chinese Turkestan for such a physician as I then became, because among the three-brained beings breeding on this part of the surface of this planet of yours there was developed at that period more strongly than usual two forms of their most pernicious what are called ‘organic habits,’ which also had become proper to be acquired in the presences of the beings of that ill-fated planet.

“One of these pernicious organic habits was what is called there the ‘smoking of opium,’ and the other was the ‘chewing of anasha,’ or, as it is otherwise named, ‘hashish.’

“They obtain this opium as you already know from the plant poppy, and hashish from a surplanetary formation there called ‘Chakla’ or ‘hemp.’

“As I have just said, at this period of my activities, my existence passed at first chiefly in various towns of Chinese Turkestan, but circumstances so fell out, that later I preferred to be in the towns of Russian Turkestan.

“Here among the beings of Russian Turkestan, one of the said ‘pernicious habits’ or as they themselves call them ‘vices,’ namely, the smoking of opium, was very rare, and the chewing of anasha was even rarer, but on the other hand, the use of what is called ‘Russian vodka’ flourished luxuriantly there.