Aug. 3. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



155 



1576, and ended 1594. If this be the case, the 

 Turks were smokers before tobacco was known in 

 England. — lu Persia smoking was prohibited by 

 Shah Abbas. There were two princes of this 

 name. The first began his reign 1585 a. d., died 

 1628: the second began 1641, died 1G66. The 

 proclamation against smoking was probably issued 

 by the first, since (as before mentioned) in 1634 

 Olearius found the custom firmly established. If 

 so, the Persians must have been early smokers. 

 Smoking seems to have obtained at a very remote 

 period among several nations of antiquity. Dr. 

 Clarke quotes Plutarch on Rivers to show that 

 the Thracians were in the habit of into.xicating 

 themselves with smoke, which he supposes to have 

 been tobacco. The Quartcrbj Review is opposed 

 to this. 



Lafitau quotes Pomp. Mela and Solin to show 

 the same ; also Herodotus and Maximin of Tyre, 

 as evidences to the same custom prevailing amongst 

 the Scythians, and thinks that Strabo alludes to 

 tobacco in India. (See, for the Scythians, the Uni- 

 versal History.) Logan, in his Celtic Gaul, ad- 

 vances that smoking is of great antiquity in Bri- 

 tain. He says that pipes of the Celts are frequently 

 found, especially at Brannocktown, co. Kildare, 

 where in 1784 they were dug up in great numbers; 

 that a skeleton dug out of an ancient barrow, 

 actually had a pipe sticking between its teeth 

 when found. (From Anthol. Hibem., i. 352.) Hal- 

 loran says Celtic 2>'pes are found in the Bog of 

 Cullen. In form, these pipes were very similar to 

 those in use at this day. 



Eulia Etfendi mentions having found a tobacco 

 pipe, still in good preservation, and retaining a 

 smell of smoke, embedded in the wall of a Grecian 

 edifice more ancient than the birth of Mahomet. 

 (Med. Chir. Rev. 1840, p. 335.) This Dr. Cleland 

 proves to be a lie(?). He proves the same of 

 Chardin, Bell of Antermony, Mr. Murray, Pallas, 

 Rumphius, Savary, &c 



Masson describes a " chilli 



or smoking ap- 

 ancient wall in 



lum, 

 paratus, found embedded in an 

 Beloochistan. (Travels, ii. 157.) 



J3r. Yates saw amongst the paintings in a tomb 

 at Thebes the representation of a smoking party. 

 (Travels in E'^ypt, ii. 412.) 



There is an old tradition in the Greek Church, 

 said to be recorded in the works of the early 

 Fathers, of the Devil making Noah drunk with 

 tobacco, &c. (Johnson's yl/>y.s.s7'«/«, vol. ii. j). 92.) 



Nanali, the prophet of the Sikhs, was l)orn 1419. 

 Supposing him fitly when he published his Ordi- 

 nances, it would bring us to 1469, or 23 years 

 before the discovery of America by Columbus. 

 In these Ordiminces he forbade the use of tobacco 

 to the Sikhs ; hut found tiie habit so deeply rooted 

 in the Hindu that he made an exception in their 

 favour. (Masson's lieliiorhistuii, vol. i. p. 42.) 

 Should this be true, the Hiudii must have been in 



the habit of smoking long before the discovery of 

 America, to have acquired so inveterate a predi- 

 lection for it. 



If the prophecy attributed to Mahomet be not 

 a fabrication of after times, it is strongly corro- 

 borative, and goes to show that he was himself 

 acquainted with the practice of smoking, viz. 



"To thu latter day there shall be men who will bear 

 the name of Moslem, but will not be really such, and 

 they shall smoke a certain weed which shall be called 

 tobacco." — See Sale's Koran, ed. 8vo. p. 1G9. 



Query. Is tobacco the word in the original? 

 If so, it is a stumbling-block. 



Lieut. Burns, in his Travels, has the following 

 curious statement : 



" The city of Alore was the capital of a great empire 

 extending from Cacheniere to the sea. This was con- 

 quered by the Mahomedans in the seventh century, 

 and in the decisive battle they are reported to have 

 brought fire, &c., in their pipes to frighten the 

 elephants." 



Lieut. Burns conjectures that they must have 

 smoked bang, &c., tobacco being then unknown. 



Buchanan's account of the cultivation and pre- 

 paration of tobacco in Mysore, carries with it a 

 conviction that these elaborate processes were never 

 communicated to them by Europeans, nor brought 

 in any way from America, where they have never 

 been practised. They strike one as peculiarly 

 ancient and quite indigenous. 



The rapid dissemination of tobacco, as also of 

 forms and ceremonies connected with its use ; its 

 already very extensive cultivation in the remotest 

 parts of the continent and islands of Asia, within a 

 century of its introduction into Europe, amounts 

 to the miraculous ; and particularly when we see 

 new habits of life, and novelties in their ceremonies 

 of state, at once adopted and become fiimiliar, to 

 such otherwise unchangeable people as the orientals 

 are known to be. Extraordinary also is the fiict 

 that the forms and ceremonies adopted should so 

 precisely coincide (in most respects) with those in 

 use among the American Indians, and should not 

 be found in any of the intermediate countries 

 through which we must suppose them to have 

 passed. AVho taught them the presentation of the 

 pipe to guests, a Ibrm so strictly observed by the 

 Red I\Ien of America, &c. ? But the " narghile," 

 the " kaleoon," the " hookah," the " hubble-bub- 

 ble," whence came they? They are indigenous. 



Great stress is laid on the silence of iVIarco Polo, 

 Rubruquis, — the two Mahomedans, Drake, Ca- 

 veiulisli, and PigafeUa; also oi' the Arabian Nig/its, 

 on the subject of smoking, — and with reason; but, 

 after all, it is negative evi<lence : for we have 

 examples of the same kind the other way. Sir 

 Henry Blount, who was in Turkey in 1634, de- 

 scribes manners and customs very minutely with- 

 out a single allusion to smoking, though we know 



