60S NATURAL STYPTIC. 



celebrated Kaleigh contributed most to introduce the custom 

 of smoking among the nations of the north. As early, as the 

 end of the sixteenth century, bitter complaints were made 

 in England " of this imitation of the manners of a savage 

 people." It was feared that, by the practice of smoking 

 tobacco, " Englishmen would degenerate into a barbarous 

 state." * 



When the Ottomacs of TJruana, by the use of niopo 

 (their arborescent tobacco), and of fermented liquors, have 

 thrown themselves into a state of intoxication, which lasts 

 several days, they kill one another without ostensibly fight- 

 ing. The most vindictive among them poison the nail of 

 their thumb with cwrare ; and, according to the testimony 

 of the missionary, the mere impression of this poisoned nail 

 may become a mortal wound, if the cwrare be very active, 

 and immediately mingle with the mass of the blood. When 

 the Indians, after a quarrel at night, commit a murder, they 

 throw the dead body into the river, fearing that some indi- 

 cations of the violence committed on the deceased may be 

 observed. " Every time," said Father Bueno, " that I see 

 the women fetch water from a part of the shore to which 

 they are not accustomed to go, I suspect that a murder has 

 been committed in my mission." 



We found in the Indian huts at Uruana the vegetable 

 substance called " touchwood of ants," t with which we had 

 become acquainted at the Great Cataracts, and which is 

 employed to stop bleeding. This substance, which might 



potato in Europe more than 120 or 140 years. When Raleigh brought 

 tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586, whole fields of it were already 

 Cultivated in Poitugal. It was also previously known in France, where 

 it was brought into fashion by Catherine de Medicis, from whom it 

 received the name of " herbe a la reine," "the queen's herb." 



* This remarkable passage of Camden is as follows, Annal. Elizabet. 

 p. 143 (1585); " ex illo sane tempore [tabacum] usu cepit esse creber- 

 rimo in Anglia et magno pretio dum quamplurimi graveolentem illius 

 fumum per tubulum testaceum hauriunt et mox e naribus efflant ; adeo 

 ut Anglorum corporum in barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur, 

 quum iidem ac barbari delectentur." We may see from this passage 

 that they emitted the smoke through the nose ; but at the court of Mon- 

 tezuma the pipe was held in one hand, while the nostrils were stopped 

 with the other, in order that the smoke might be more easily swallowed. 

 (Life of Raleigh, vol. i, p. 82). 



f Yesca de horrrigas. 



