134 BRAZILIAN TOBACCO. 



reason for some hours, and renders them furious in battle." 

 Humboldt, however, has shown that this stimulating snuff is 

 not the product of the tobacco plant, but of a species of acacia, 

 Niopo being made from the pods of the plant after they have 

 undergone a process of fermentation. Captain Burton, when 

 traveling in the Highlands of Brazil, found the tobacco plant 

 growing spontaneously, which made him conclude that it is 

 indigenous to Brazil. He found the " Aromatic Brazilian " 

 a kind of tobacco with thin leaves and a pink flower, which is 

 " much admired in the United States, and there found to lose 

 its aroma after the second year." It is usually asserted that 

 the tobacco grown in Brazil contains only two per cent, of 

 nicotine, but Captain Burton is disposed to doubt this, as he 

 states that some varieties of the " holy herb " grown at SaV 

 Paulo and Nimos suggests a larger proportion. In the small 

 towns in the Highlands of Brazil, Captain Burton found that 

 excellent cigars, better than many " Havannas," were retailed 

 at a halfpenny each. In La Plata, Paraguay, and other 

 countries to the south of Brazil, nearly every person smokes, 

 and an American traveler quoted by Mr. Cooke states that 

 women and girls above thirteen years of age use the weed in 

 the form of quids. A magnificent Hebe, arrayed in satin and 

 flashing in diamonds, "puts you back with one delicate hand, 

 while with the fair taper fingers of the other she takes the 

 tobacco out of her mouth previous to your saluting her." A 

 European visiting Paraguay for the first time is rather aston- 

 ished at the conduct of the fair beauty, but such is the force 

 of custom that the squeamishness of the new-comer is soon 

 overcome, when he finds that he has to kiss every lady to 

 whom he is introduced ; and the traveler says that " one half 

 of those you meet are really tempting enough to render you 

 reckless of consequences." 



Smoking is practised by the natives of Patagonia, who are 

 a tall and muscular class of men, though not such giants as 

 represented by the early voyagers. Hutchinson, in a valua- 

 ble paper on the Indians of South America has an account 

 of the Pehuenches, one of the principal tribes of Patagonia, 



