no ST NICOTINE 



like the Shiraz herb. Meyen's argument would have had 

 more value if he had been able to assign a date to the 

 sculpture on which he had observed representations of 

 tobacco-pipes, or if he himself had seen and examined 

 specimens of the tobacco-plant said to grow wild in the 

 East Indies. As his statement lacks the certainty which 

 authenticated facts alone can give, it leaves the question 

 still unanswered. The two Lazarists, MM. Gabet and Hue, 

 whose zeal and heroic enterprise carried them safely through 

 the wildest districts of Tartary and Thibet, make no 

 mention of the practice of smoking among the inhabitants 

 of those countries ; though in China they had noticed out- 

 side tobacconists' shops an elifigy of the tobacco plant, 

 which they took to be a representation of the royal insignia 

 of France, for they speak of it as the flcnr-de-lxs. Doubt- 

 less China rose in their estimation when they beheld so 

 flattering an acknowledgment of its indebtedness to the 

 grand nation for the blessing the herb conferred on an 

 unworthy people. But if such were their impression they 

 greatly erred. The inhabitants of the Celestial Empire 

 (Tin-shan) entertained notions of a very different character. 

 Their country (Chung-tow) occupied the centre of the 

 earth, and all beings outside their borders they regarded 

 as Fan-qui, barbarian wanderers, or outlandish demons. 

 The exalted ideas they had formed of themselves led them 

 into the happy delusion that they were the lower empire of 

 the celestial universe. ' In the heavens,' says M. Pingre, 

 ' they beheld a vast republic, an immense empire, composed 

 of kingdoms and provinces; these provinces were the 

 constellations : there was supremely decided all that should 

 happen, whether favourable or unfavourable, to the great 

 terrestrial empire, the empire of China.' Their historians 

 carry back the traditions of their country to a period so 



