174 NICOTIANA TABACUM, 
it had overcome his original disgust, eventually 
found in it a pleasing sedative, a soother of care, 
and. ja material addition to the pleasures of life. 
Its ‘use, which originated among savages, has 
spread into every civilized country; it has made 
its way against the declamations of the learned, 
and the prohibitions of civil and religious author- 
ity, and it now gives rise to an extensive branch 
of agriculture, or of commerce, in every part of 
the globe. 
Tobacco was in use among the aborigines of 
America, at the time of its dicovery. They em- 
ployed it as incense in their sacrificial fires, 
believing that the odour of it was grateful to their 
gods. The priests of some tribes swallowed the 
smoke of this plant to excite in them a spirit of 
divination, and this they did to a degree which 
threw them into a stupor of many hours continu- 
ance. When recovered from this fit of intoxica- 
tion, they asserted that they had held a confer. 
ence with the devil, and had learned from him the. 
course of future events. Their physicians also 
got inebriated with this smoke, and pretended 
that while under the influence of this intoxication 
they were admitted to the council of the gods, 
who revealed to them the event of diseases. - Hur- 
riot. pea BS: 5 | 
