AS JL WATICOTIO 607 



the habit of calling the niopo or curwpa tree-tobacco) haa 

 been cultivated from time immemorial by all the native 

 people of the Orinoco ; and at the period of the conquest 

 the nabit of smoking was found to be alike spread over Doth 

 North and South America The Tamanacs and the May- 

 pures of Guiana wrap maize-leaves round their cigars, as the 

 Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortes. The 

 Spaniards have substituted paper for the leaves of maize, in 

 imitation of them. The poor Indians of the forests of the 

 Orinoco know as well as did the great nobles at the court of 

 Montezuma, that the smoke of tobacco is an excellent nar- 

 cotic ; and they use it not only to procure their afternoon nap, 

 but also to put themselves into that state of quiescence, 

 which they call dreaming with the eyes open, or day-dreaming. 

 The use of tobacco appears to me to be now very rare in 

 the missions ; and in New Spain, to the great regret of the 

 revenue-officers, the natives, who are almost all descended from 

 the lowest class of the Aztec people, do not smoke at all. 

 Father Gili affirms, that the practice of chewing tobacco is 

 unknown to the Indians of the Lower Orinoco. I rather 

 doubt the truth of this assertion, having been told that the 

 Sercucumas of the Erevato and the Caura, neighbours of 

 the whitish Taparitos, swallow tobacco chopped small, and 

 impregnated with some other very stimulant juices, to pre- 

 pare themselves for battle. Of the four species of nico- 

 tiana cultivated in Europe* we found only two growing 

 wild; but the Nicotiana loxensis, and the Nicotiana andi- 

 cola, which I found on the back of the Andes, at the height 

 of eighteen hundred and fifty toises (almost the height of 

 the Peak of Teneriffe), are very similar to the N. tabacum 

 and N. rustica. The whole genus, however, is almost exclu- 

 sively American, and the greater number of the species 

 appeared to me to belong to the mountainous and temperate 

 region of the tropics. 



It was neither from Virginia, nor from South America, 

 but from the Mexican province of Yucatan, that Europe 

 received the first tobacco seeds, about the year 1559.f The 



* Nicotiana tabacum, N. rustica, N. paniculata, and N. glutinosa. 



f The Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco in the West India 

 Islands at the end of the loth century. I have already mentioned that 

 the cultivation of this narcotic plant preceded the cultivation of the 



