CHEMISTRY OF A CIGAR. 37 



the increase in the consumption of this pungent, 

 narcotic Indian weed. In the time of the great 

 navigator the plant was found growing wild upon 

 the heights of the island ; and not until a full cen- 

 tury had elapsed did it become the object of care 

 and cultivation. It was introduced into Europe," 

 and, in spite of the edicts and anathemas thundered 

 against it by popes and kings, its use rapidly in- 

 creased, until it became well-nigh universal. King 

 James, in his celebrated " Counterblast to Tobacco," 

 denounced the smoking of cigars as " a custom 

 loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful 

 to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and, in the 

 black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the 

 horrible stygian smoake of the pit that is bottom- 

 less." Pope Urban VIII. issued a bull against it. 

 The Russian Government threatened with death 

 all found puffing a second cigar. The Sultan of 

 Turkey declared smoking a sin against the religion 

 of the Prophet. In fact, tobacco came under the 

 ban of the powers, temporal and spiritual, of the 

 whole world ; and yet, altogether, they utterly 

 failed to suppress its use. 



What is the nature of the plant whose history is 

 so extraordinary ? What strange elements enter 

 into its composition ? What is the chemistry of 

 those leaves which, when rolled into cylindrical 

 form, constitute the cigar, so highlv cherished by 



