'CHAPTER IX 



TOBACCO 



WHEN Benzoni, a Spanish explorer, wrote of his 

 travels in Mexico, about the middle of the six- 

 teenth century, he described plantations of an 

 herb the natives called "tabacco," the leaf of 

 which was dried and smoked in a pipe. Earlier 

 in the same f century, the islands off to the south- 

 east of Florida were explored by the followers of 

 Columbus, and here tobacco was seen first by 

 civilized men. The natives dried the leaves, then 

 made a little bonfire of them in an open vessel, 

 and sat down before it to inhale the smoke, which 

 gave them a pleasant sensation of physical com- 

 fort. The tool they used was a hollow tube that 

 branched near one end. One arm of the Y was 

 inserted in each nostril, and the other end of the 

 "pipe" was held where it caught the smoke, close 

 to the smouldering leaves. 



The North American Indians used a pipe much 

 like those we see to-day, and inhaled the smoke 

 through the mouth. The Y-shaped pipe, first 



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