ii6 ST NICOTINE 



World. Doctor Cleland, in his learned treatise on The 

 History and Properties of Tobacco (Glasgow, 1840), dis- 

 misses the inquiry as the growth of wild assertions by 

 Eastern travellers, or, at best, a mere tradition of the people 

 among whom they travelled, and ' obviously of no conceiv- 

 able weight, from the love of antiquity which is so well 

 known a mania of the inhabitants of oriental countries. 

 This summary treatment may be convenient, but it is not 

 convincing ; nor is it consistent with the open spirit of fair 

 inquiry which would characterise all endeavour to arrive at 

 truth, or to extend the sphere of knowledge. 



After all, then, we find ourselves in presence of the not 

 improbable hypothesis of an Eastern origin for the tobacco- 

 plant and the habit of smoking its leaves. Let it be con- 

 ceded that in this we have an instance, among many other 

 of the Chinaman's way of forestalling the rest of mankind ; 

 that it was he who, long ages ago, first planted in American 

 soil the perennial weed which Europe to-day presents to him 

 as a new indulgence discovered by Western enterprise. 



It must be borne in mind, however, that we have still to 

 deal with another Eastern nation, namely Japan, whose his- 

 tory and associations are closely interwoven with the com- 

 merce, customs and culture of China. China in the past 

 was to Japan what Greece in olden times was to Rome. 

 The younger nation derived from the elder much of its 

 knowledge in the arts and habits of life. Viewed in this 

 light it seems altogether reasonable to suppose that if the 

 tobacco plant and the practice of smoking its leaves were 

 known in China before the discovery of America the Japanese 

 would not be ignorant of these things. The question will 

 be considered in the next chapter. 



