CHEMISTRY OF A CIGAK. 



WHEN Columbus, three hundred and seventy- 

 five years ago, landed upon that verdant isl- 

 and of the tropics which proved the gateway to a 

 new world, he was struck with the strange habits 

 and customs of the people who flocked about him. 

 Probably no one of these habits excited his pity or 

 disgust more than that which was seen to prevail 

 among both sexes, of rolling together the dried 

 leaves of a plant offensive in taste and odor, placing 

 them in their mouths, and inhaling the smoke. If 

 he had been told that, within two or three centu- 

 ries, not only the descendants of those who com- 

 prised the Christian and polished court under whose 

 auspices his bold enterprise was undertaken, but 

 the whole civilized world would be imitating the 

 savages in the, seemingly filthy practice, he would 

 have ridiculed the idea as one most improbable and 

 preposterous. The prediction would have proved a 

 true one. The taste of the poor Indians for tobacco 

 was certainly not peculiar to them ; and wonderful 

 is the fact, that, the more advanced, Christianized, 

 and enlightened mankind have become, the larger 



