282 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOTANY OF [ Solanee. 
toujours repetée et toujours nouvelle: il faut déployer plus d’activité et plus de ressources 
d’esprit pour faire du bien aux hommes que pour leur nuire.” 
Indebted as India is to the New World for the Capsicum and Potatoe, there is yet 
another plant, which, though not to be compared with the last in real importance, is 
still more valuable as an article of commerce. This is the Tonacco, which from being 
the solace only of the red American, has become one of the luxuries of the rich, and 
almost a necessary of life for the poorer inhabitants of a great portion of the globe. 
The Hindoo, slow to adopt strange customs, has been caught with the general infection; 
and though some religiously abstain from its use, their nobles, as their women, may 
be seen inhaling it in the midst of perfumed essences, while the labouring bearer and 
hard-working boatman seem to derive fresh vigour from their ever-in-hand hooqqas: 
the mountaineer, finding it inconvenient to carry such an apparatus over his rugged 
roads, makes a hole in the ground, through which he smokes. 
The Spaniards are said to have first become acquainted with the Tobacco in the West 
Indies. The name by which it is now known was that used in the Haytian language to 
designate the pipe used in smoking the herb, which by the Mexicans was called yet/, 
and by the Peruvians sayri (Humboldt). It was first cultivated near Lisbon about 1560 ; 
and introduced into England in 1586 by Sir Walter Raleigh and his companions. It 
early attracted the notice of the English settlers in Virginia, especially after the founding 
of James Town in 1607. Shortly after this, it appears that Tobacco was introduced in 
lieu of specie, as the tavern-keepers were compelled to exchange a dinner for a few 
pounds of Tobacco, and government officers were paid in the same commodity (Tatham, 
p- 180); Malte Brune, quoting from Morse, states that, about 1619, on the arrival 
of afresh body of emigrants, 150 young women were sold to the planters as wives, at 
150lbs. of Tobacco each. In the native annals Tobacco is described to have been first 
taken to Java in 1601. In Persian works on Materia Medica, it is stated to have been 
introduced into India in A.H. 1014 (A.D. 1605) towards the end of the Sultunnut of 
Jelaladeen Akbar Padshaw. This is confirmed by a proclamation of Jehangeer, who 
succeeded in July of that year. From India Tobacco was probably taken to the 
Malayan Peninsula, and perhaps to China; but Pallas, Rumphius, and Loureiro, are 
of opinion that in China the use of Tobacco is more ancient than the discovery of the 
New World. : 
As Tobacco is now extensively cultivated both in the Old and New World, it will 
be proper, if we wish to obtain an idea of the climate best suited to it, to ascertain, 
- that of the places where the best kinds are grown. The species referred to the genus 
Nicotiana are twenty-six in number in the Syst. Vegetabilium of Roemer and Schultes. 
Of these, some are doubtful and others probably only varieties ; so that one-fifth may | 
be safely deducted from the above number. The remainder are indigenous in America 
from Brazil and Chili, along Peru, to Mexico and the rocky mountains on the north. 
One species, N. Australasia, R. Brown Congo, p. 472 (suaveolens, Lehm., undulata, Bot. 
Mag. 673) is undoubtedly wild in New Holland, in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson. 
N. persica, 
