Hashish
From Greece to Egypt

Text: Pavlow Methenitis

“If fate”, as they say, “does not love those who have grown old, the reason is that they are now unable to believe in chimeras, in those illusions of the mind …”

The publication of Henri de Monfreid’s Hashish from Greece to Egypt (La croisière du hachich, Grasset, 1933), in Greek (translated by Sotiris Chalikias) by Parian Pontoporos Publications in 2012, is living proof that, despite the crisis, or, rather, by virtue of it, there are people in Greece who dare to seize their chimeras. Such was for Kostas Gouzelis of Pontoporos the publication of the memoirs of de Monfreid, a 19th-20th c. Frenchman who made his way through this world as a writer, pirate, gun-runner and smuggler of hashish (which he bought from Greece to sell to Egypt), pearl hunter and occasional spy! This is a compelling account by a Sinbad the Sailor who lead ten normal lives in the space of one…