INDIAN SNUFF-MILLS. 287 



grooves of which the carving consists, with white and 

 yellow pigment. 



b, a pestle or rubber — a smoothly polished cylindri- 

 cal stick of rose-wood, nine inches long, and three- 

 fourths of an inch in diameter ; the upper part is 

 squared, the lower end bevelled and considerably 

 worn. 



Now, let us see how the owner put this apparatus in 

 play. In the first place he took a seat on a log on the 

 ground, drew from a chuspa, commonly suspended over 

 the right shoulder, a few pieces of dried leaves of tobacco 

 and placed them in the cavity of a. Then grasping the 

 handle of the mill in one hand he began to grind them 

 with the pestle or rubber b in the other, the blade of a 

 resting on the knee or lap. In a few moments the 

 leaves were reduced to a powder much finer than the 

 mortar could make — in a word, to a rich and fragrant 

 snuff. Not a fragrance due to the substance ground, 

 but to the material of the mill ! The heat developed by 

 the friction of two pieces of jacaranda evolves a 

 delicious aroma, which impregnates whatever is ground 

 between them. This was the secret of the superi- 

 ority of primitive snuff — a knowledge of it may be 

 worth something to modern manufacturers. 



The article being thus prepared, the next thing was 

 to transmit it to its destination, ere it grew cold or its 

 odour became weakened by evaporation. The apparatus 

 for this part of the business is figured at c, a double 

 tube, consisting of two thin, light, cylindrical, and 

 parallel bones, fourteen inches long, three-eighths of an 



