78 COMMERCIAL VALUE OF TOBACCO. 



plant and prohibited or hindered its cultivation. Saint 

 Pierre alluding to the beneficence of nature and of the folly 

 and cruelty of man as contrasted says : 



"When the princes of Europe went Gospel in hand, to 



SHIPPING TOBACCO. 



lay waste Asia, they brought back the plague, the leprosy 

 and the small-pox, but nature showed to a Dervish the coffee 

 tree in the mountains of Yemen, and at the moment when 

 nature brought curses on us through the Crusaders, it 

 brought delights to us through the cup of a Mohammedan 

 Monk. The descendants of those princes took possession of 

 America, and transmitted to us by this conquest, an inex- 

 haustible succession of wars and maladies. While they 

 were exterminating the inhabitants of America with cannon, 

 a Carib invited sailors to smoke his Calumet as a signal of 

 peace. The perfume of the tobacco vanquished their torments 

 and their troubles, and the use of tobacco was spread all over 

 the earth. While the afflictions of the two worlds came 

 from artillery, which kings call their last resort, the consola- 

 tions of civilized nations flowed from the pipe of a savage." 

 It seems hardly possible to draw a more graphic picture of 

 the blessings diffused by the balmy plant, than that just given. 

 Its peculiar charms and soothing influence are well calculated 



