3-072-536 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

A Smoking Party, Zululand, South Africa, c1900? 'This scene represents the height of a Zulu's enjoyment, the smoking of a strong kind of tobacco. The odour and taste of this weed is so pungent that the smoker is compelled to cough. From this irritation some inexplicable pleasure is derived, perhaps akin to that experienced by those who indulge in the now exploded habit of taking snuff, for, when "on pleasure bent", the Zulus crowd into the small hut and smoke away until the place is filled with a perfect cloud. A regular coughing chorus is soon in progress, and the more they cough the better they like it'. From a photograph by Middlebrook.