“—The Master of Life ascendingThrough the opening of cloud curtains,Through the doorways of the heaven,Vanished from before their faces,In the smoke that rolled around himThe pukwana of the peace-pipe.”’
“—The Master of Life ascendingThrough the opening of cloud curtains,Through the doorways of the heaven,Vanished from before their faces,In the smoke that rolled around himThe pukwana of the peace-pipe.”’
“—The Master of Life ascendingThrough the opening of cloud curtains,Through the doorways of the heaven,Vanished from before their faces,In the smoke that rolled around himThe pukwana of the peace-pipe.”’
“—The Master of Life ascending
Through the opening of cloud curtains,
Through the doorways of the heaven,
Vanished from before their faces,
In the smoke that rolled around him
The pukwana of the peace-pipe.”’
The shadowy form of great Elizabeth’s gallant courtier gives place to the Shepherd of the Muse, who, as he passes, beams upon his friend a countenance of supernal sweetness. Then in a voice of dreamy reverie the genius of theFaërie Queeneaddresses the Olympian deity after this manner:—
‘While musing on the loves and adventures of chivalrous knights and ladies fair, away from the busy haunts of men in the wilds of Kilcolman,
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,Keeping my sheep among the cooly shadeOf the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore;There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out;Whether allurèd with my pipe’s delightWhose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,Or thither led by chance, I know not right;Whom, when I askèd from what place he came,And how he hight, himself he did ycleepeThe shepherd of the oceanby name,And said he came from main-sea deep.He, sitting me beside in that same shade,Provokèd me to play some pleasant fit,And when he heard the music that I made,He found himself full greatly pleased at it;Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took it in hondMy pipe—before that æmulèd of many—And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):Himself as skilful in that art as any.He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;By change of turns each making other merry;Neither envying other nor envied,So piped we, until we both were weary.
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,Keeping my sheep among the cooly shadeOf the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore;There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out;Whether allurèd with my pipe’s delightWhose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,Or thither led by chance, I know not right;Whom, when I askèd from what place he came,And how he hight, himself he did ycleepeThe shepherd of the oceanby name,And said he came from main-sea deep.He, sitting me beside in that same shade,Provokèd me to play some pleasant fit,And when he heard the music that I made,He found himself full greatly pleased at it;Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took it in hondMy pipe—before that æmulèd of many—And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):Himself as skilful in that art as any.He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;By change of turns each making other merry;Neither envying other nor envied,So piped we, until we both were weary.
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,Keeping my sheep among the cooly shadeOf the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore;There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out;Whether allurèd with my pipe’s delightWhose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,Or thither led by chance, I know not right;Whom, when I askèd from what place he came,And how he hight, himself he did ycleepeThe shepherd of the oceanby name,And said he came from main-sea deep.He, sitting me beside in that same shade,Provokèd me to play some pleasant fit,And when he heard the music that I made,He found himself full greatly pleased at it;Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took it in hondMy pipe—before that æmulèd of many—And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):Himself as skilful in that art as any.He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;By change of turns each making other merry;Neither envying other nor envied,So piped we, until we both were weary.
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,
Keeping my sheep among the cooly shade
Of the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore;
There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out;
Whether allurèd with my pipe’s delight
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,
Or thither led by chance, I know not right;
Whom, when I askèd from what place he came,
And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe
The shepherd of the oceanby name,
And said he came from main-sea deep.
He, sitting me beside in that same shade,
Provokèd me to play some pleasant fit,
And when he heard the music that I made,
He found himself full greatly pleased at it;
Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took it in hond
My pipe—before that æmulèd of many—
And played thereon (for well that skill he conned):
Himself as skilful in that art as any.
He piped, I sung; and when he sung, I piped;
By change of turns each making other merry;
Neither envying other nor envied,
So piped we, until we both were weary.
‘Thus, O Jupiter, and you my fellow-denizens of Elysium, would we hold sweet communion of soul. And then it was I learnt of the right noble and valorous knight, the exceeding comfort of the “soverane weed,” which the elements in aforetime had formed for the solace of men and gods; for nothing loth am I to say that I drew from the pipe a foretaste of the peaceful joys of the blessed, and therefore did I recognise in the divine herb a gift from heaven, treasured up for mortals in Nature’s bounteous store. It seemeth, however, that the immortal powers swayed by imperious Juno had disowned the Virginian nymph and had lost the healing balm she breathes upon the chafed and fretful; yet, methinks, even Juno might find a piquant pleasure in a few whiffs of the weed.
‘But if Raleigh denies himself the renown of being the first to bring the Indian’s herb to his native country, he can fairly lay claim to the pleasure of having first planted it in Ireland. When he was Mayor of Youghall, and his abodethe manor-house, he smoked his first pipe of tobacco in his garden, sheltered by the spreading branches of four yew trees that still may be seen forming a thatch-like covering for a summer-house. And in this Youghall garden he planted Ireland’s first instalment of the Indian weed. Ever foremost among the high-souled and adventurous, he neglected not other like humble things that he thought would be of service to his fellow-creatures, for here, too, he planted and cultivated Ireland’s greatest blessing, the potato, which fostered by prudence, rapidly gave to that wild and lawless land an abundance of food for the impoverished peasantry. He planted likewise, the affane cherry, and the sweetly perfumed wall-flower, which he had brought from the Azores, and which may still be seen growing on the banks of the Blackwater.
‘Much doubting me if aught I have said can profit this goodly company, I will call upon one who has seen the plant in its native soil and can describe its uses among the Indians. For the herb, which is commonly called tobacco, hath many names and divers virtues.’ Then rose before the recumbent throng, the historian of England’s first colony in the New World, Thomas Harriot, mathematician and astronomer. He began:—
‘A brief and true report I will render you of what I learned of the herb, the truth of which can be attested by Ralf Lane, the worthy governor of the new found land of Virginia. It befel me that I went out with a number of my countrymen to that far-off land in the Western Seas the great Columbus had discovered, that I might make record of all that happened concerning us on that perilous venture. It was undertaken by the orders of Sir Walter Raleigh, and was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. Soon after we had made our peace with the natives, and theywere of a peaceful race, not caring for bloody strife or for plunder, we found them making a fume of a dried leaf, which they rolled up in a leaf of maize, of the bigness of a man’s finger. By rubbing a stone with a stick, in a cunning way they had learned from some divine power, they contrived to kindle fire and putting a light to the leaf they smoked it, as is done by mortals in these days. It was the leaf of an herb which is sowed apart by itself and is called by the inhabitants uppówoc. They use it also in powder. The leaves thereof being dried and crushed small, they take the fumes or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay into their stomach and head, from whence it purgeth superfluous humours, and it openeth all the pores and passages of the body, by which means the use thereof preserveth the body in health, and they know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal people in England were oftentimes affected.
‘This herb is of so precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods are marvellously delighted therewith. Whereupon they sometimes make hallowed fires and cast some of the powder therein for a sacrifice; being in a storm upon the waters, to pacify their gods they cast some into the air and into the water: so a wear for fish being newly set up they cast some therein and into the air; also after an escape from danger they cast some into the air likewise; but all is done with strange gestures, stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of hands, holding up hands, and staring up into the heavens, uttering therewithal and chattering strange words and noises.
‘We ourselves, during the time we were there, used to smoke it after their manner, as also we did when we returned home and found many rare and wonderful experiments of the virtues thereof, of which the relation wouldrequire a volume by itself. The use of it by men and women of great calling as else, and many learned physicians bore testimony to its exceeding good qualities as a healer of the sick and a comforter in adversity.’
Then rose England’s unexampled smoker, Dr. Parr, renowned throughout Europe for his profound learning, theology and Greek. Smiling benignantly under the voluminous wig which furnished Sydney Smith with a droll figure of speech, he recounts the story of how his smoking had caused royalty to sneeze. This had happened on the occasion of a dinner given in honour of the Duke of Gloucester at Trinity College, Cambridge. Immediately the cloth had been removed the doctor began his usual practice of smoking his pipe. In the warmth of conversation he blew clouds so vigorously that a general rising in revolt took place led by his Royal Highness sneezing and holding his nose.
As to its effect upon the learned doctor, his physician, Dr. John Johnstone, explains that tobacco-smoking acted upon his patient like a charm, allaying his abnormally irritable nervous system. ‘It soothed him and assisted his private ruminations; it was his consoler in anxiety, and helpmate in composition. All who knew him had seen the air darkened with the fumes from his pipe when his mind was labouring with thought. Yet he lived the span of years allotted to mortals, falling ripe at the age of seventy eight.’ Thereupon a voice was heard protesting against the practice of smoking, in all hours and all occasions, even in the presence of ladies. ‘Were you then the divine who refused to dine out or spend an evening with a friend unless privileged to smoke when and where you pleased, even in the drawing-room of ladies, nay, would oftentimes single out the handsomest one to light your pipe?’
‘Truly your apprehension in this is in no wise at fault, nor would I mislead you as to pressing the ladies into the service of my pipe. I recognised that it was nature’s behest to woman to impart to duller mortals light and leading, and by watchful eye and ready wit to keep the flame aglow. You did not profit by observation or experience, else you would have learned this lesson.’
‘Your pardon, Dr. Parr, but I cannot conceive that you properly maintained the dignity of your calling by such discourtesy to the ladies. Of this am I conceived that had you so behaved in the presence of my wife she would have called you to better manners, unless, indeed, you had been entreated by the ladies to smoke as you did and blow fumes into their faces.’
‘Gently, gently, my sapient critic, mistake not the significance of the argument, which is this: Woman by divine command is man’s companion and helpmate through their earthly career. Shut her out from all participation in man’s social enjoyments, particularly one which like the Indian weed brings to the ruffled mind solace and an abiding peace, and there will spring up in her heart a feeling of resentment, as of a rival, which may find vent in lost tobacco or broken pipes. Therefore is it not well to teach the ladies to take pleasure in your smoking habit rather than leave them to find pleasure in putting your pipe out? And to thee, O troubled one, whose throne is the mighty Olympus, would I say that in St Nicotine’s soothing charm dwells an antidote to Juno’s censorious tongue, and in her clouds a shield against Aphrodite’s gracious influence.’
A smile plays across the countenance of Jupiter, but scorn flashes from Juno’s lustrous eyes. And Aphrodite flutters her wings in dissent, for already she feels her swayover mortals yielding to the rising power of St Nicotine of the peace-pipe. Casting her longing gaze towards the place of her birth.
To the Cyprian shores the goddess movesTo visit Paphos and her blooming groves,Where to the Power an hundred altars rise,And fragrant odours scent the balmy skies.
To the Cyprian shores the goddess movesTo visit Paphos and her blooming groves,Where to the Power an hundred altars rise,And fragrant odours scent the balmy skies.
To the Cyprian shores the goddess movesTo visit Paphos and her blooming groves,Where to the Power an hundred altars rise,And fragrant odours scent the balmy skies.
To the Cyprian shores the goddess moves
To visit Paphos and her blooming groves,
Where to the Power an hundred altars rise,
And fragrant odours scent the balmy skies.
A few more whiffs from my cigarAnd then in Fancy’s airy carHave with thee to the skies.How oft the fragrant smoke upcurl’dHath borne me from this little worldAnd all that in it lies.Thomas Hood.
A few more whiffs from my cigarAnd then in Fancy’s airy carHave with thee to the skies.How oft the fragrant smoke upcurl’dHath borne me from this little worldAnd all that in it lies.Thomas Hood.
A few more whiffs from my cigarAnd then in Fancy’s airy carHave with thee to the skies.How oft the fragrant smoke upcurl’dHath borne me from this little worldAnd all that in it lies.
A few more whiffs from my cigar
And then in Fancy’s airy car
Have with thee to the skies.
How oft the fragrant smoke upcurl’d
Hath borne me from this little world
And all that in it lies.
Thomas Hood.
Thomas Hood.
Like a sun-gleam seen through a Scotch mist the hoary head and set visage of the veteran thinker, Thomas Carlyle, appears. As a persistent preacher of the gospel of silence he will himself talk and talk on, seemingly oblivious to its application to himself. Turning to his friend, Dr. Calvert, he asks, ‘Why are we here? Really, I think it shocking that we should run to Rome, to Greece, and leave all at home lying buried in nonentity. Were I supreme chief there should be a resurrection of the old English ages. I will pit Odin against Jupiter, and find sea-kings that will put Jason to shame. Ah, tobacco! It is one of the greatest benefits that ever came to the human race. Nobody ever came near me whose talk was half so good as silence with my pipe. I would fly out of the way of everybody, and would much rather smoke a pipe ofwholesome tobacco than talk to anybody just now. I saw in the weed the one element in which by European manners men could sit silent together without embarrassment, and no man was bound to speak one word more than he had actually and veritably got to say. Nay, every man was admonished and enjoined by the laws of honour, and even of personal ease, to stop short at that point; at all events, to hold his peace and take to his pipe the instant he had spoken his meaning—if he chanced to have any. The results of which salutary practice, if introduced into constitutional parliaments, might evidently be incalculable. Take for example, the Tobacco Parliament of Friedrich Wilhelm. It had not the least shadow of a constitutional parliament, nor even a privy council, as we understand it, his ministers being mere clerks to register and execute what he had otherwise resolved upon. But he had hisTabako-Collegium; hisTabagie, or Smoking Congress, and which made so much noise in the world and which in a rough, natural way afforded him the uses of a Parliament on most cheap terms and without the formidable inconveniences attached to that kind of institution. In short, he had a parliament reduced to its simplest expression; instead of parliamentary eloquence he had Dutch clay pipes and tobacco provided in abundance. And this was the essence of what little intellect and insight there was in a parliament; all that can be got out of any parliament. Sedatives gently soothing, gently clarifying tobacco-smoke, with obligation to a minimum of speech, surely give human intellect and insight the best chance they can have.’
It was noticeable that the stern denouncer of talk did not say how he, personally, would have liked a seat in a ‘parliament reduced to its simplest expression.’ Electrical glances passed from one to another of the immortals,which clearly indicated that the inflexible one would have kicked the seat from under him, and, taking his stand on the eternal verities, would have lashed with the scorn of his tongue the drowsy dogs into a full recognition of their own worthlessness; would have compelled them to realise that a deliverer was at hand, and that Carlyle was synonymous with Cromwell.
Yet he would not overlook tobacco’s failings. Tobacco he averred had done to the German populations important multifarious functions. ‘For truly in politics, morality and all departments of their practical and speculative affairs its influence, good and bad, could be traced; influences generally bad; pacificatory but bad, engaging them in idle cloudy dreams—still worse, promoting composure among the palpably chaotic and discomposed—soothing all things into lazy peace that all things might be left to themselves very much and to the laws of gravity and discomposition, whereby German affairs came to be greatly overgrown with funguses and symptoms of dry and wet rot.’ Here Germany’s great chancellor broke in with hilarity, and said how he was reminded—
‘Hold your tongue, Furst, till I have done.’ Relaxing into a more social vein, Carlyle described how he became a smoker from the age of eleven, and how his mother would fill his long clay pipe, light it, take a whiff or two, and then hand it to him. ‘And as to snuffing, I will tell you what happened to me when I was a very little boy, perhaps not more than four years old, and before I was admitted to the dignity of trousers. I went to the house of two old ladies who were fond of snuff. Their box to me was something wonderful. Either as a cruel jest, or in utter foolishness, they asked me to take a pinch, I, really, not knowing what snuff was. Urged and instructed by the ladies, I took avery big pinch indeed. An explosion, or rather a succession of explosions followed, and I thought my head was blown off. My first experience of snuff was my first tragedy.’ Whereupon there fell upon the ear strange sounds as of distant revelry re-echoed through ancient halls untenanted, and Olympus rocked under a burst of Jovian laughter.
Charles Lamb, beaming with smiles, is ready to Lamb-pun (lampoon) anybody or everybody, if he will but wa-wa-wait a bit. And Leigh Hunt, aside to Wordsworth, whispers, ‘Lamb will crack a jest in the teeth of a ghost, and then melt into thin air at the awful thought.’ While Coleridge, of moody brow, brightens under the genial influence of old comrades, and casting reflective glances around him, lives again in the memory of those delightful evenings spent with them, their pipes aglow, in the old hostel where genial Elia and a host of genius loved to foregather.
Sincere, affectionate, loving Charles Lamb, whose child-like heart, so easily touched with the sufferings of others, was full of chivalrous devotion to the sufferer. He turns to Wordsworth and explains his attitude towards the weed. ‘Tobacco was for years my evening comfort and my morning curse. For two years I had it in my head to write a poem on the charmer, but she stood in her own light by giving me headaches that prevented me singing her praises.’
‘But, my worthy Lamb, you know that headaches come not so much of smoking as of imbibing too freely of that cheery October you like so well? And what strong coarse stuff you would smoke to be sure! Do you remember that even Dr. Parr was amazed at your prodigious powers, and asked how you had acquired the habit?’
‘Ah, yes, I remember, I told him I had acquired it,’ (and here a sparkle of humour plays across his face) ‘by toiling after it, as some men toil after virtue.’
‘And when your physician wisely admonished you, and would have stopped further indulgence in the weed, at least for a time, confess, naughty man, what was your reply?’
‘May my last breath be drawn through a pipe and exhaled in a pun! And yet I would readily admit that,
For thy sake, tobacco, IWould do anything but die!’
For thy sake, tobacco, IWould do anything but die!’
For thy sake, tobacco, IWould do anything but die!’
For thy sake, tobacco, I
Would do anything but die!’
The eloquent Robert Hall, England’s greatest pulpit orator, takes up the social theme and recounts his first experience of the pipe. ‘My association with the fraternity of smokers happened when I was a young man at Cambridge under the guidance and somewhat severe admonition of the learned Dr. Parr, whose pre-eminence among smokers we all acknowledged. Thus early in life brought under the soothing influence of the weed by so profound a scholar, whose knowledge of Greek was the terror and admiration of young men, and feeling the natural desire of youth to imitate the great, I thought I could not in any better way fit myself for his society than by adopting his habit of smoking, and out of a long clay pipe like his. It was then I developed a taste for tobacco which from that time onward never left me. Being pressed on one occasion to explain why I began the practice, I made answer that I was qualifying myself for the society of a Doctor of Divinity, and that my pipe was the test of my admission. Indeed, I began to experience an ill-at-ease feeling whenever the weed and its instrument were not within my reach. I did not care to argue with those people who thought evil things of smoking. If they did not like it I would merely advise them to keep from it. For myself, I was perfectly contented if they would let me alone, and allow me the mild indulgence during my sojourn among mortals.’
The shade of Charles Spurgeon, the hero of the Tabernacle, glides into view, holding to his lips a churchwarden of ample proportions, as if inhaling the herb’s perfumed breath with serene enjoyment. A veteran devotee at the shrine of St Nicotine he claimed a foremost place among Victorian smokers. Morning, noon and night, in season, and, as many thought, out of season, he might be found ensconced in some quiet nook, or perched on a wall, diligently like a devout Parsee keeping the sacred fire aglow, and drawing inspiration from the spiral wreaths as they ascended heavenwards. It was to his nostrils as frankincense, leading his thoughts to cerulean quarries in the sky where gems of sparkling wit (or broad humour) were to be gathered for the delectation of multitudes hungering for even his smallest joke, or it might be, an oracular utterance on the ‘Scarlet Lady.’ The Tabernacle towered high in the land in those days, and the churchwarden put forth a lengthening stem. And yet there were limits, outside which even the High Priest of the Tabernacle could not be permitted to roam, or to smoke the idolatrous Indian weed unchallenged. Here he relates how a worthy dame of his fold brought him to book on the subject—his everlasting breathing of ’bacco—and demanded of him whether the practice was orthodox: could he put his finger on any part of the Bible and say, here is my authority? Whereupon the pastor meekly answered, ‘no, madam. But we do read in the Bible of the people passing through the valley of Baca.’ ‘The valley of Baca! yes, here it is!’ From the clouds leisurely blown around her a new light dawned on her troubled conscience; the gage of battle was withdrawn, and she believed with the implicit faith of a convert in her prophet, priest and king. Others might stray from the beaten track to gain a greener mouthful, ‘but for myself,’she exclaimed, ‘henceforward I shall rejoice in the path that leads to the Tabernacle through the valley of Baca!’
‘I love thee!’ exclaimed Captain Marryat, in the impassioned strain of a Troubadour for the lady of his heart, ‘I love thee! whether thou appearest in the form of a cigar, or diest away in sweet perfumes enshrined in a meerschaum bowl. I love thee with more than a woman’s love; thou art a companion to me in solitude; I can talk and reason with thee, avoiding loud, obstreperous argument. Thou art a friend to me when in trouble, for thou advisest in silence, and consolest with thy calm influence over the perturbed spirit. I know not how thy power has been bestowed upon thee; yet, if to harmonize the feelings, to allow the thoughts to spring without control, rising, like the white vapour from the cottage hearth on a morning that is sunny and serene; if to impart that sober sadness over the spirit which inclines us to forgive our enemies; that calm philosophy which reconciles us to the ingratitude and knavery of the world; that heavenly contemplation whispering to us, as we look around, that all is good—if these be merits, they are thine, most potent weed.’
‘A truce to superfine sentiment. Tobacco is all very well as a check to over-vehemence in men, just as a snaffle-bit is to a rampant horse; applied to the wrong person, it will turn a sluggard into a seventh sleeper. But it has a higher significance, such as you in your speculative dreaming may never have thought of. Herr Carlyle, the friend of the Fatherland, has told you his story of the use and abuse of tobacco in Germany, now I will tell you mine, just as the incident occurred in the old Bund of the times that are past.
‘I went to see Rechberg, who was at work and smokingat the same time. He begged me to excuse him for a moment. I waited a little while. By-and-by I got rather tired of waiting, and, as he did not offer me a cigar, I took one out of my case and asked him for a light, which he gave me with a somewhat astonished expression of countenance. But that is not all. At the meetings of the Military Committee, when Rochow represented Prussia at the Federal Diet, Austria was the only member who smoked. Rochow, who was a desperate smoker, would have dearly liked to smoke too, but did not venture to do so. When I came in I also felt that I wanted to smoke, and, as I did not see in the least why I should not, I asked the Presiding Power for a light, which appeared to be regarded both by it and the other powers with equal wonder and displeasure. Obviously it was an event for them all. Upon that occasion, therefore, only Austria and Prussia smoked. But the other gentlemen considered it such a momentous matter that they reported upon it home to their respective governments. The affair demanded the gravest consideration, and fully six months elapsed during which only the two great powers smoked. Then Schrenkh, the Bavarian Envoy, began to vindicate the dignity of his position by smoking. Nostitz, the Saxon, yearned to do so too, but he had not as yet received permission from his minister; but as, at the next meeting, he saw that Bothmer, the Hanoverian, lit a cigar, he (who had strong Austrian proclivities, and some of his sons in the Austrian army) came to an understanding with the Rechberg, for he also drew a weed from its leathern scabbard, and blew a cloud. The only ones now remaining were the Würtemberger and the Darmstädter, neither of them smokers. But the honour and importance of their respective States imperatively exacted that they should smoke; and so, at the verynext meeting, the Würtemberger brought out a cigar. I can see it now—a long, thin, light-yellow thing! and smoked at least half of it, as a burnt offering for his fatherland!
Departure of Columbus.(From a rare old painting.)
Departure of Columbus.
(From a rare old painting.)
The important part tobacco has played in state affairs would be amazing were it not so laughable; the weed seems to break down barriers with a puff, and to clear the way to mutual understandings where jealousy andinfra dig.blocked up the path. It once reached my ears that England’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Clarendon, made his office reek like a cabman’s shelter with the fumes of the strongest tobacco. He would never listen to a word against his favourite indulgence without rising in assumed wrath in its defence, and would stoutly maintain that tobacco possessed a potent spell over men’s minds, disposing them towards the good side in all the important affairs of life. And Lord Canning, too, could seldom be seen without a cigar in his mouth.
‘But as to smoking in colleges and among youths generally, I am firmly convinced that the practice is bad in every way. No youth under the age of sixteen should be permitted to take tobacco in any form, under pain of physical chastisement or public prosecution.’
Prince Bismarck having thus delivered himself, the honour of France demanded that the Grand Nation should not remain silent in the halls of the immortals. An animated chatter among the spectral throng ensues, and mutterings which mark dissension are audible above the general hum.
‘Indulgence in tobacco and alcohol are leading directly to the total annihilation of conscience … the moral sense is blunted, and degeneracy is spreading throughout Christendom. Count Tolstoy is perfectly certain of it,according to communications which have reached me through a medium of highly purified spiritual affinities.’
‘After dinner nothing ever was so good as a pipe, taken with a glass or two of brandy—not that I cared for alcohol, O dear no! but this I do say, that the more I smoked the better I worked.’
‘The depopulation of France is directly involved in the use of the pernicious plant called tobacco, as was proved by my experiments on cocks and rabbits (Dr. Depierris). The manufacture and sale of tobacco are, very properly, entirely in the hands of the government; it can, therefore, regulate the output, increase or diminish the quantity, or cut off the supply altogether, if either one or the other course be deemed advisable in the public interest. My argument was, in the first place, based upon experiments on animal organisms conducted under my own eyes, and in the second place, on reports furnished by Prefects of Departments. Those reports demonstrated the alarming fact that in ten departments where each inhabitant smoked on an average 1490 grammes of tobacco in the year, the families having seven children and upwards were in the proportion of sixty-eight in every 100,000 of the population; while in ten other departments where the average consumption of tobacco was only 451 grammes per head, the proportion of families of seven children for every 100,000 inhabitants rose to eighty-one; the still-born children numbered only 156, against 1124 in the former case. Hence the significant inference that the use of tobacco led directly to degeneracy of the human race.’
‘But tobacco may be used in moderation without injury, if men would but keep away from the little glasses of brandy, absinthe, and other similar liqueurs.’
‘Tobacco produces sluggishness and loss of will power.’
‘On dit, et c’est passé en proverbe; Le tabac c’est l’ami de l’homme, il le console de la femme.’
‘Fumer, c’est obtenir une trêve à la tristesse, aux préoccupations irritantes, aux petites misères de la vie, aux chagrins domestiques, aux tracasseries d’un ménage mal assorti; c’est aussi, en matiere de travaux intellectuels et artistiques, se procurer, au moyen d’une surexcitation légere, un développement, une clairvoyance d’idées qui souvent vous fuient, c’est un refuge contre ce qui blesse ou choque, contre le mécontentement de soi-meme ou d’autres; c’est dans les professions manuelles, une diminution des sensations de fatigue, d’ennui, de découragement; c’est aussi, une annihilation du mal qui cause une atmosphere froide, humide, malsaine, c’est enfin une jouissance émanant d’une faible congestion au cerveau, un étourdissement passager, une sorte d’ivresse légere qui caresse les idées et les empeche de vagabonder.
‘En résumé, après tout ce qui s’est dit et écrit pour ou contre le tabac, l’usage de cette plante est aujourd’hui général; il constitue de nos jours une branche très importante de culture, d’industrie et de commerce, et une source de revenus considérable pour les Etats.’
The voice of Fairholt, of rare tobacco fame, claims attention. ‘Let us get out of the region of captious criticism and come to the solid ground of fact. For is it not surpassing strange that man still exists on earth if there be death in the pipe? Is his life shorter, his morals worse, his intellect weaker, than in the days of, say, Henry VIII. before tobacco was known in Europe? For three hundred years the poisonous drug, if such it be, circulated in the veins of Europeans, and where is the degeneracy? They are at this day, the most active, energetic and intellectual beings that have ever peopled the planet. The learneddoctor’s awful array of afflictions attested by experiments on small forms of animal life have no terrors for them; experiment and demonstrate as he may, experience is a better teacher. Is there any reason why men should apply to themselves the results of operations made upon creatures that perish of old age while human beings are still in their infancy?’
‘No, surely not,’ responds Inglis of Indian frontier fame. ‘Often did I regale my weary body and brain with a pipe after a hard day’s sport with rifle and hound on the track of the beasts of the jungle, or after a fierce bout with the courageous wild boar, whose splendid fighting qualities are little known out of India. It happens occasionally that the huntsman finds himself far out on a desolate track when
The night-cloud has loweredAnd the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.
The night-cloud has loweredAnd the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.
The night-cloud has loweredAnd the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.
The night-cloud has lowered
And the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.
At such times he turns with joy to his ready comforter, the peace-pipe. Breathing in the fragrant breath his thoughts are set free to wander at will; old places are revisited, and lost memories revived, always tinged with pleasing thoughts of the things most cherished and the faces most loved. At peace with himself and the world, he gazes into the starlit heavens and exclaims, “Hail! thou invigorator of the weary, consoler of the sorrowful, uncomplaining, faithful friend.’”
‘I too, would add my experience of the weed’s healthful influence on weary humanity battling with plague and pestilence in tropical lands.’ Here Sir Samuel Baker relates how African savages had taught him the virtues of the plant.
‘On that continent of dreadful night, yet so fascinatingto the European explorer, where death in one form or another confronts the traveller at every step, it fell to my lot to be detained at the native village of Obbo during the rainy season, in the midst of an indescribable steam of poisonous vapours arising from a rank luxuriance of vegetation to be seen in no other part of the world. Fever and dysentery were carrying off the natives in large numbers. My wife and myself were both down with fever, when the old chief persuaded me to smoke tobacco, which in the countries bordering on the Nile is cultivated and manufactured in large quantities. I had never smoked in my life, but I then commenced with Obbo tobacco and pipes, and lived to bless the day I was wise enough to make the experiment.
‘During our pleasant sojourn in the valley of Albara it was my misfortune not to be a smoker. In the cool of the evening we used to sit by the bamboo table outside the door of our house and drink our coffee amidst the beautiful scenery of a tropical sunset, with deep shadows falling into the valley. But a pipe, the long chibouk of the Turk, would have made our home a paradise. On our return to Gondokora I found that the plague had visited the town during our absence, and that the vessel we were to go in to Khartoum was plague-stricken, many of the crew having died of disease. I was so thoroughly convinced of the purifying properties of tobacco that upon the circumstance coming to my knowledge I at once ordered several pounds of tobacco to be burnt on board, chiefly in the cabin, and with the satisfactory result that we all escaped the plague.’
William Makepeace Thackeray grows pugnacious in defence of his favourite indulgence, and asks, ‘What is this smoking, that it should be considered a crime! I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival.The fact is that the cigar is a rival to the ladies and their conqueror too. Do they suppose they will conquer? Let them look over the wide world and see for themselves that their adversary has overcome it. Germany has been puffing for over three-score years and more, France smokes to a man. Do they think they can keep the enemy out of England? Pshaw! Look at Nicotiana’s progress. Ask the club-houses. I, for my part, think it not at all unlikely that a bishop may be seen now and then lolling out of the Athenæum with a cheroot in his mouth, or at any rate, a pipe stuck in his shovel hat.’
Bulwer Lytton waxes warm over the inestimable blessings of the pipe. He declares that it is a great comforter, and a pleasant soother! ‘Blue devils fly before its honest breath! It ripens the brain, it opens the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage, and acts like a Samaritan. He who doth not smoke hath either known no great grief, or refuseth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from heaven. What, softer than woman? Yes, for the woman teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to soothe. Woman consoles us it is true, while we are young and handsome, when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale and the weed in that; Jupiter, hang out thy balance and weigh them both; and if thou give preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee—O Jupiter! try the weed.’
The white man landed—need the rest be told?The new world stretch’d its dusk hand to the old.Each was to each a marvel, and the tieOf wonder warmed to better sympathy.The Island.
The white man landed—need the rest be told?The new world stretch’d its dusk hand to the old.Each was to each a marvel, and the tieOf wonder warmed to better sympathy.The Island.
The white man landed—need the rest be told?The new world stretch’d its dusk hand to the old.Each was to each a marvel, and the tieOf wonder warmed to better sympathy.
The white man landed—need the rest be told?
The new world stretch’d its dusk hand to the old.
Each was to each a marvel, and the tie
Of wonder warmed to better sympathy.
The Island.
The Island.
Looking back towards the source whence the old world derived the Indian weed and the habit of smoking it, the career of Columbus presents itself crowded with marvellous exploits and instances of indomitable courage that have left their imprint on men’s minds for all succeeding generations. Though an old and oft-repeated story it has an abiding interest for adventurous explorers whose highest glory is to link themselves with the free and fearless Vikings. His imagination aglow with the wondrous story Marco Polo had told of his voyages in the far east, and possibly under the prompting of Toscanelli whose map was his guide, Columbus conceived the bold idea of reaching India by sailing west. Difficulties inevitable to so daring a project were met and overcome with the patience born of genius. At last he gained the ear of Queen Isabel, and to her he poured out his heart’s grief, and made her acquainted with the dream of his life. Pointing to his chart he pictured a new world teeming withevery precious thing of earth, where wealth, and power, and majesty, were to be won by courage and enterprise; and all should be hers were he but equipped with royal authority and means of transport. The sincere, impassioned eloquence with which he pleaded the reasonableness of his cause and its triumphant success enlisted the sympathy of the noble-hearted Queen. She entered with spirit into the grand scheme that was to bring renown and riches to her impoverished country. ‘I will assume the undertaking for my own kingdom of Castile,’ she exclaimed, ‘I will pawn my jewels if the money you raise is not sufficient.’
On Friday, August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from the bar of Saltos, near the little maritime town of Palos (Andalusia), as admiral of the three small ships his indomitable energy had brought together. His own vessel, theSanta Maria, had been built expressly for the voyage, and was manned by a crew of fifty ruthless, unskilful adventurers. The two others were caravels named thePintaand theNiña; they were owned by the Pinzon family, and were commanded, respectively, by Martin Alonzo and his brother Vicente Yañez. In all one hundred and twenty men embarked under the inspiriting influence of Columbus on their perilous adventure into unknown seas. Three months have well-nigh passed and yet no sign is visible of the promised land. After enduring hardships the severest, worn out by storm and tempest in regions leading they knew not whither, their murmurs deepen into open mutiny; the crew gathers round the great captain with threats to throw him overboard unless he will turn the rudder and sail home. The vision of Columbus rises before us: tall, fair, blue-eyed, beaming with the confidence of a life’s devotion to a great purpose, he confronts hisboisterous crew, and, with chart in hand, once more subdues them with an enthusiasm fired by profound conviction. On the morning of October 12, a sailor, Rodirego de Triano on board theNiñascanning the horizon, calls to his mates to look out for land, pointing to a dark mass looming in the distance. Then there breaks forth from the mast-head the wild cry,Tierra! Tierra!and the helmsmen steer their course into the calm waters of San Salvador.
Here among the fair Bahamas where on Nassau’s most conspicuous site is reared a statue to Columbus, let us linger a moment while the great navigator and his adventurers prepare for landing in order to take possession of the new territory in the names of their Majesties, Ferdinand and Isabel. Richly attired in scarlet and plumes, and accompanied by the two Pinzons, with a chosen escort bearing the standard of Spain, they enter their boats and are rowed to the shore. With tears of joy Columbus kneels and kisses the ground, while thanking Heaven for the great mercy vouchsafed to him and his companions. Very soon they become aware that the island is populated; they see natives running hither and thither, peering from among the trees that stretch down to the shore, and making gestures to one another in evident amazement. By-and-by they approach nearer and nearer to the white men; now they throw themselves on the ground in attitudes of wonder and supplication. Columbus is struck with their child-like simplicity; he reassures them, offering to each some trifling article—beads, buttons, etc.—which they take with eager delight. Their curiosity leads them to touch the hands and faces of the white men, whose garments are a great surprise. From a creek hard by canoes shoot out into the open,but the moment the occupants see the towering vessels of the Spaniards with their flapping sails, amazement strikes them dumb and motionless. Columbus directs his men to capture them, but the spell broken, they struggle desperately and plunge into the water. Two, however, are secured and brought on board, where they are treated with the utmost kindness by Columbus, for he wishes to learn from them something of their language, their country, and its products, particularly about gold and where it is to be obtained.
The gladsome sight that everywhere met their eyes must have been very refreshing to the weary mariners. As far as the eye could reach there was a luxuriant vegetation, and a forest of trees bearing an amplitude of rich and varied fruit stretching down to the shore temptingly over-hanging its sides, as if inviting the strangers to feast and enjoy the good things of this Elysium. Perennial springtime seemed to reign over the happy island, whose inhabitants knew no want nor suffering. Its waters were liquid sapphire and malachite, looking through which could be seen graceful branching corals; sky-blue fishes playing hide-and-seek with golden ones among a delicate network of purple and yellow; there, too, were miniature willows of lilac, and many another rare thing in the mermaids’ pleasure gardens. Here and there the coast was strewn with shells of exquisite beauty—trumpets for Tritons; the king conch, out of whose pink lining lissome fingers create lovely cameos; tiny rice shells, pink ones like ladies’ finger-nails, and cowries, and many another rare shell that, in the days of England’s shell mania, would have realised a handsome fortune for the happy possessor.
Sailing amidst these scenes of wondrous beauty they,sixteen days later, October 28, sighted the island of Cuba, to which Columbus gave the name of Juana, in honour of Prince Juan. In his selected letters, translated by R.H. Major, F.S.A., Columbus says: ‘I followed the coast westward, and found it so large that I thought it must be the mainland, the province of Cathay, China.’ Continuing his narrative he says, ‘And as I found neither towns nor villages on the coast, but only a few hamlets with the natives of which I could not hold conversation because they immediately fled, I kept on the same route, thinking I could not fail to light upon some large cities and towns.… Returning to the harbour I had remarked, I sent two men ashore to ascertain whether there was any king or large cities in that part.’
Cruising in this region of enchantment, Cuba had fallen upon his enraptured gaze like a vision of Eden. Soft and gentle breezes, an azure sunlight sky, a rich luxuriant landscape, the carolling of birds, exercised a powerful influence over his imagination. He exclaims: ‘It is the most beautiful island the eyes ever beheld. I am told that the trees never lose their foliage, and I can well understand it, for I observed they were all as green and luxuriant as in Spain in the month of May. Some were in blossom and others bearing fruit, others otherwise, according to their nature. The nightingale was singing as well as other birds of a thousand different kinds, and that in November, the month in which I myself was roaming amongst them.’
After an absence of three days, the two men whom Columbus had sent to explore returned. They had found no king nor large city, but had come upon many small hamlets with numberless inhabitants; yet nothing could be seen that in any way corresponded to their ideas of settled government. On their way back they for the first timewitnessed the use of a herb which, says Washington Irving, ‘the ingenious caprice of man has since converted into an universal luxury in defiance of the opposition of the senses.’ Among other tales, strange and wonderful, the two men told how they had come upon naked Indians with lighted fire-brands in their mouths, from which they drew in the fumes, expelling them again through their nostrils! They were simple, inoffensive people, and well disposed towards the white men, whom they allowed to examine their fire-brands. They had found them to be composed of the dried leaves of a herb rolled up tightly in a leaf of maize. Lighting one end of the roll, they put the other end between their teeth, and inhaled the fragrant vapour with an air of placid enjoyment which seems to have produced in the Spaniards a craving for the weed that to this day has never left them.
Here was a race of beings living in happy ignorance of the strifes and ambitions, the anxieties and vexations of civilised man, reclining in every posture of ease while breathing the fragrant odours of their treasured weed: civilised man, indeed, gazed with amazement and longing. Sweeter far than incense from Arabi was this new delight to the Spaniards, it became a necessity; it was their morning comforter that fortified them for the combat of the day, and their evening solace. Thus it happened that the new world gave to the old its first lesson in the art of regaling tired nature with her own anodyne. Navarrete says: ‘The habit has since become universal, and hence the origin of the so much prized and so far celebrated havanas.’
With the experiences of a new world just dawning upon them, the explorers were prepared at every step to encounter prodigies of a startling character. So far, however, they had seen nothing to cause them apprehension; nothing had yet fallen in their way more interesting than these primitivepeople clad merely in nature’s copper-coloured cuticle, and adorned with ornaments of pure gold and rare and curious shells intermingled with their braided locks. And yet still more strange, these very simple-minded children of nature looked up to the white men as visitors from the spirit-land of their dreams, and with awe and wonder made offerings to them of whatever things they esteemed most precious. The ships in the offing with flapping wings had come from the blue beyond their ken, and the white men were denizens of the skies. This curious idea—so soon to be dispelled by the rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards—which the natives had conceived of the strangers is alluded to by many early writers who afterwards visited the new world. Sir Francis Drake, inThe World Encompassed(1572-73), speaking of the North American Indians, says: ‘They brought to the ship a little basket made of rushes and filled with a herb which they called tabah.… They came now a second time bringing with them as before had been done, feathers and bags of tabah for presents, or rather, indeed, for sacrifice, upon this persuasion that we were gods.’
The chief object Columbus had in view, that indeed which had secured him the powerful influence of the Church, was not merely the discovery of the marvellous country of the East Indies, mentioned by Marco Polo, but the conversion to Christianity of the Grand Khan who ruled over the land. To this end, and to obtain for him friendly treatment, he bore for the Khan a royal letter of introduction signed by their Christian majesties of Spain.
Meanwhile, Columbus had been busily occupied in collecting the spoils of his easily acquired possessions in the West India Islands, in readiness to return home and render an account to his magnanimous friend and protectress, Queen Isabel, of the perils of his voyage and the ultimaterealisation of his dreams. His own vessel, theSanta Maria, having run aground had to be abandoned, but theNiñawas soon made ready for him, and without undue delay the little craft weighed anchor on January 16, 1493. On his arrival in Spain the Court was at Barcelona, and thither Columbus journeyed, attended by his train, bearing the trophies of his adventure. He was received by the king and queen with every mark of royal favour. Seated in their presence, he displayed to their eager gaze the specimens he had brought for their acceptance of various products of the new found land: virgin gold, cotton, mysterious plants (assuredly the tobacco plant would be here), birds of rare plumage, and animals of unknown species. But rising in importance above all these things were nine native Indians for conversion and baptism to attest to the reality of his triumph. Though the Grand Khan had not been seen, yet in presence of these Indians even the learned Bishop of Talavera could no longer look askance at the great navigator as a vain dreamer not altogether free from suspicion of magic. In grateful remembrance of Her Majesty’s bounty and enthusiastic protection, Columbus presented to her the casket which had contained the jewels she so generously gave up for his use, now filled with pure gold, as an earnest of what was in store for Spain in their Majesties’ new dominions. The casket is preserved to this day in the sacristy of the cathedral at Grenada.
Columbus was of too active a disposition to indulge his well-earned repose; the old craving for adventure and exploration left him no peace. Under royal command a fleet worthy of his grand scheme of conquest and colonisation was prepared for him, consisting of three large galleons and fourteen caravels, carrying 1,500 men, and all things necessary for the establishment of a new colony. He wasinvested with supreme authority as admiral, viceroy, and captain-general of all islands and continents in the Western Ocean. Second in authority was Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, who accompanied the expedition bearing the royal commission of inspector-general of the West India Islands. By the end of September 1493 the fleet was speeding its way towards the Far West, and with favouring gales was wafted straight amongst the Windward Islands. Had some good genius guided their course across the deep in order to disclose to them the beauties of the new world, no fairer island could have been found than the one which, on that bright morning in January 1494 lay before the adventurers as the great master mariner steered his vessel into the safe harbour of Hayti—land of mountains. The climate was perfect; a perpetual summer was tempered by cool mountain breezes and periodical showers, which swept in from the Atlantic. By the banks of this beautiful harbour, on the north shore, Columbus planted the first Spanish settlement, and in grateful tribute to the Queen he named it Isabella. The country, which in all probability he believed to be the continent he was in search of, he named San Domingo, a name which soon disappears from the records, substituted by that of Hispaniola. From this island came to Europe the first written allusion to the use of tobacco by the natives. It is from Fra Ramono Pane, a Franciscan, whom Columbus had left at Hayti. In a letter to his friend Peter Martyr, Queen Isabel’s secretary, he tells him of a curious practice said to be common among the natives of rubbing the dried leaves of a herb into a powder, and then with a hollow forked tube, two prongs of which they put up their nostrils while holding the lower one in the powder, ‘they drew the powder into their noses, which purges them very much of humours.… Thecane or tube is about half a cubit long.’ This description would seem to indicate snuffing rather than smoking. It seems clear that we have here come upon the origin of the practice of titillating the olfactories which towards the close of the sixteenth century, had become, says Molière, ‘la passion des honnetes gens.’ Catherine de Medici became one of the earliest devotees to the new indulgence; fashion led thepoudre à la Reinethrough the courts of Europe, where elegant dilettanti vied with each other in the display of jewelled snuff boxes filled withodeur de Rome, or other right puissant sternutatories, not always of a harmless kind. Prelates and abbés were enamoured of the delightfully-scented refresher, and in Spain they did not scruple to place their brilliant boxes on the altar for their use, in spite of Pontifical ordinances and anathemas from Urban VIII. and Innocent XII. Physicians, carried away with the belief that a grand sternutatory had been discovered, proclaimed its advent to a grateful people, and prescribed its use liberally; for, said they, ‘it must needs do good where the brain is replete with many humours, for senselessness or benumming of the brains, and for a hicket that proceedeth of repletion.’ Yet there were divisions in the ranks of medical men; there were different sides of the question, different interests or tastes to be considered. Had not the Duc d’Harcourt suffered martyrdom in the new cause in order to please Louis le Grand? The Court physician, Monsieur Fagon, devoted his brilliant talents to a public denunciation of the new vice which, springing from heathen soil, was fast spreading over Christendom! Unhappily for the success his eloquence merited, in the warmth of his oratory he so far forgot himself as to dip his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and take copious pinches oftabac en poudrein order to refresh his fickle brain.
The early writers on the smoking habit were perplexed about the origin of the name given to the weed. Many favoured the opinion that the plant and its use had first come under the observation of Europeans in the island of Tobago. This notion is shewn to be incorrect in a work bearing the rather long and ambitious title ofTobago: a Geographical Description, Natural and Civil History, together with a full Representation of the Produce and other Advantages arising from the Fertility, excellent Harbours, and Happy Situation of that Famous Island. The author says, ‘I do not recollect any author who has given a clear account of this name; and as many have expressed a doubt whether the island was so called from the herb, or the herb from the island, I hope the curious and inquisitive reader will be well pleased to see that matter set in its true light; for the fact is that neither the island received its name from the herb, nor the herb from the island. The appellation is, indeed, Indian, and yet was bestowed by the Spaniards. The thing happened thus: the Caribbees were extremely fond of tobacco, which in their language they calledkohiha, and fancied when they were drunk with the fumes of it the dreams they had were in some sort inspired. Now their method of taking it was this: they first made a fire of wood, and when it was burnt out they scattered upon the living embers the leaves of the plant, and received the smoke of it by the help of an instrument that was hollow, made exactly in the shape of the letter Y, putting the larger tube into the smoke, and thrusting the shorter tubes up their nostrils. This instrument they calledtabago, and when the Admiral Christopher Columbus passed to the southward of this island he judged the form of it to resemble that instrument, and thence it received its name.’
Among the continental tribes, however, smoking instruments were found which, in variety of form, originality of design, and skilful execution, equal the best productions of Europe; indeed, they have to the present day served as models for the rest of the world. Those who, inspired by Cooper born-ideals of the noble savage in his native wilds, long for a sight of real Indian life, unspoiled by contact with civilised man, will now look in vain across the American continent. The Indian, to his sorrow, soon learnt the vices of the white man who, by craft and arms, ousted him from his heritage. Occasionally, however, far up the Mississippi valley, or on the confines of the Canadian forests, the desire may, to some extent, be appeased. The observer may with admiration note the fine physique, the strongly marked physiognomy, the untrammelled freedom of these primitive lords of the land. Old chiefs may be seen gravely smoking by their wigwams, while reclining against the trunk of a fallen tree and discussing among themselves the prospects of war or peace, or perhaps congratulating themselves on the accession to their numbers of some neighbouring tribe. A little way off young warriors are furbishing up arms for the chase, or war as may be. Others are elaborately ornamenting with carving and paint their curious tobacco pipes, some of wood with long stems adorned with feathers, some cut out from the treasured red pipe-stone brought from the mountain quarry. Economy of the precious weed is not overlooked, and the inner bark of the red willow is peeled into fine shavings and when dried over a low fire is mixed with the tobacco leaves. Their tobacco pouches well filled they may start on the chase or the war path, assured that they are well provided with refreshment for many days.
Europe, however, is indebted to Oviedo for the most intelligent account of the tobacco plant, and the methodcommonly adopted by the Caribs of preparing and using it. During his tenure of office in the West Indies he collected an immense amount of information relating to the inhabitants, their country and its products, the results of which he published in 1526, under the title ofHistoria natural y general de las Indias. In the Seville edition of 1535 is an engraving of the smoking instrument used by the Caribs. It is of the form already described. Oviedo says of it that ‘it is about a span long; when used the forked ends are inserted in the nostrils, the other end being applied to the burning leaves of the herb. In this manner they inhale the smoke until they become stupefied. And when forked canes cannot be procured, they make use of a straight reed or hollow cane, and this implement is calledtabacoby the Indians.’ Oviedo speaks disparagingly of the smoking habit, and classes it amongst their evil customs as a thing very pernicious, and done in order to produce insensibility. Remarking on the prevalence of the habit, he says that the consumption of tobacco by the various tribes of the Indians is of universal and immemorial usage, in many cases bound up with the most significant and solemn tribal ceremonies. No matters of importance to the tribe or the family can be conducted, no compact can be held binding, that has not been ratified by the passage of the great pipe, be it the pipe of peace or the pipe of war—the calumet or the tomahawk—from the lips of one chief to those of the others of the conference. The pipe, then, is their great seal, the solemn pledge of friendship, good faith, and such qualities as the chivalry of the forest suggests to the untutored mind. Although Oviedo regards unfavourably the practice of smoking, he evidently prized the plant, as we read that on his return home he cultivated it in his private gardens. This is but one step removed from its enjoyment in the pipe, and whocan say that in his retirement he did not take that step? Las Casas speaks so slightingly of his work as to say that it contains almost as many lies as pages. Las Casas, the renowned friend and protector of the poor oppressed Indians, could certainly speak with confidence on matters relating to the West India Islands. He had gone to the colony in the train of Nicolas de Ovando in 1502, and settled in Cuba as parish priest and vicar-apostolic of the islands. Possibly his intimate knowledge of the cruelties practised by his countrymen on the unoffending natives and their insatiable greed of gold, had turned him against all highly-placed officials in the colonies. He agrees with Oviedo, however, in dislike of tobacco-smoking. He says: ‘I cannot see what benefit can be derived from it.… However extensive it may be in other countries (and common no doubt it is there) the habit has become so general in this [Spain] that, to the discredit of parents, it is even followed by children.… The eternal cigar is seen in the mouths of old and young, even in that of the ragged urchin.’
The third voyage of Columbus to the Far West, resulting in the discovery of the South American continent, brought the Spaniards into contact with new races well advanced in the arts of civilisation as compared with the condition of the inhabitants of the islands, and opened the way for intercourse and the development of mutual interests of no common order. What use they made of this brilliant opening, leading to the conquest of Mexico and Peru, is told in the fascinating pages of Prescott. Well might the eyes of the Spaniards be dazzled by the splendours they beheld in the palace of the great Montezume, where, on the occasion of their reception by the Emperor, cigars were handed to the guests inserted in tubes of richly-carved gold,tortoise-shell, or silver; or they imbibed the soothing pleasures of the ‘intoxicating weed called tobacco mingled with liquid amber.’ And while thus engaged a troop of almost phantom-like tumblers and jugglers gaily disported themselves before their wondering eyes. The after-dinner smoke, so dear to middle age, is a vestige of that civilisation which, before the onward march of the Spaniards, vanished like the mist of the morning. Our excellent guide through these realms of a shadowy past relates how the Aztecs would smoke after dinner to prepare for the siesta with as much regularity as an old Castilian does now. When dinner was over they rinsed the mouth with scented water, and an officer of the Court would then with much ceremony hand to the king his pipe. They smoked out of pipes made of polished and richly-gilt wood, inhaling the fragrant fumes of tobacco mixed with other aromatic herbs.
Girolamo Benzoni of Milan took a strong dislike to the Indian weed, and saw in it only a noxious plant whose fumes poisoned the pure breath of heaven. Like every European who visited the newly discovered countries of the West, he had his attention drawn to the herb the Indians loved, and in hisHistory of the New Worldthrough some portion of which he travelled in 1642-45, he describes the tobacco plant as growing in ‘bushes, not very large, like reeds, that produce a leaf in shape like that of a walnut, though rather larger.’ He says it is greatly esteemed by the natives and the slaves whom the Spaniards have brought from Ethiopia. He then describes the method of preparing it for smoking, which corresponds pretty nearly with the process in operation at the present day in America, and tells us that ‘when the leaves are in season they pick them, tie them up in bundles, and suspend them near their fireplaces till they are very dry;and when they wish to use them, they take a leaf of their grain (maize) and putting one of the others into it they roll them round tightly together; then they set fire to one end, and putting the other end into the mouth they draw their breath up through it, wherefore the smoke goes into the mouth, the throat, the head, and they retain it as long as they can, for they find a pleasure in it; and so much do they fill themselves with this cruel smoke that they lose their reason. And there are some who take so much of it that they fall down as if they were dead, and remain the greater part of the day or night stupefied. Some men are found who are content with imbibing only enough of this smoke to make them giddy, and no more. See what a wicked and pestiferous poison from the devil this must be! It has happened to me several times, that going through the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua, I have entered the house of an Indian who had taken this herb, which, in the Mexican language, is called tobacco, and immediately perceiving the sharp fetid smell of this truly diabolical and stinking smoke, I was obliged to go away in haste and seek some other place.’ These strong words call forth the remark from his translator, Admiral Smith, that ‘surely the royal author of the famousCounterblastmust have seen this graphic and early description of a cigar!’ Though in the same key, Benzoni’s is but a feeble breath compared with the fulmination of our British Solomon against the ‘lively image and pattern of hell,’ or the ‘Stygian fumes from the pit that is bottomless!’ The fame of the Indian weed as a healer of the sick had not reached Europe when Benzoni published his travels through the Spanish possessions of the West, but its medicinal property had not escaped his acute observation. He gives a drawing of the medicine man putting three ofhis patients through a course of his tobacco treatment. The first is represented freely imbibing the fumes of tobacco, the second is just dropping his pipe, and himself off to sleep, and the third swings in a hammock attended by the doctor. Benzoni relates how in La Espanola and the adjacent islands sick men went to the place where the smoke was to be administered, and when they were thoroughly intoxicated by it, the cure was mostly effected. ‘On returning to his senses the patient told a thousand stories of his having been at the council of the gods, and other high visions.’
And as to the origin of the plant, let the old chieftain of the Susquehanna tribe himself relate the story. It will merely be necessary to introduce him to the reader seated with his family, and a few braves gathered around him, listening to the words of a Swedish missionary, who expounds to them the creed of the Christian and the scriptural narrative of our first parents. The sermon over, the old chief, with easy grace and measured words, replies: ‘What you have told us is very good, we thank you for coming so far to tell us those things you have heard from your mothers; in return we will tell you what we have heard from ours.
‘In the beginning we had only flesh of animals to eat, and if they failed they starved. Two of our hunters having killed a deer and broiled part of it, saw a young woman descend from the clouds, and seat herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the other, “It is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let us offer some of it to her.” They accordingly gave her the tongue. She was pleased with its flavour, and said, “Your kindness shall be rewarded, come here thirteen moons hence and you shall find it.” They did so, and found where her right handhad touched the ground maize growing, where her left hand had been, kidney-beans, and where she had sat they found tobacco!’