ORIGIN OF THE TOBACCO PLANT 127 



smoking, "drinking a pipe of tobacco," as it was at 

 first called, was extraordinary both for its sudden 

 development, its somewhat excessive character, and the 

 violent antagonism which it aroused, and, as we learn 

 from Mr Frederic Harrison, still arouses. It was at 

 once called " divine tobacco " by the poet Spenser, and 

 " our holy herb nicotian " by William Lilly, and not 

 long afterwards denounced as a devilish poison by King 

 James. The reason why the English had most to do 

 with the introduction of smoking is that the inhabi- 

 tants of South America did not smoke pipes, but 

 chewed the tobacco, or took it as snuff, and less fre- 

 quently smoked it as a cigar. From the Isthmus 

 of Panama as far as Canada and California, on the 

 other hand, the custom of smoking pipes was uni- 

 versal, and wonderful carved pipes of great variety 

 were found in use by the natives of these regions, and 

 also dug up in very ancient burial grounds. Hence the 

 English colonists of Virginia were the first to introduce 

 pipe-smoking to Europe. 



The Portuguese had discovered the coasts of Brazil 

 as early as 1500, and it is they who carried tobacco to 

 their possessions and trading ports in the Far East to 

 India, Java, China, and Japan, so that in less than a 

 hundred years it was well established in those countries. 

 Probably it went about the same time from Spain and 

 England to Turkey, and from there to Persia, and 

 rapidly developed not only special new forms of pipe 

 (the hookah) for its consumption, but also within a few 

 years special varieties of the plant itself. These were 

 raised by cultivation, and have formerly been erroneously 

 regarded as native Asiatic species of tobacco plant. 



The definite proof of the fact that tobacco was in 

 this way introduced from Western Europe to the 

 Oriental nations is, first, that Asiatics have no word for 

 it excepting a corruption of the original American 

 name tabaco, tobacco, or tambuco : it is certain that it 



