96 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY. 



Frenchman just quoted, are, and have been, to 

 me utterly unknown. In my twentieth year, 

 being inconvenienced by habitual dyspepsia, with 

 a chronic eruption on the face — a common 

 symptom of gastric derangement in the tropics — 

 I was advised to smoke by a friend, who promised 

 me a speedy and perfect cure of both ailments 

 from the practice. There and then I accepted a 

 cigar and smoked it — my first cigar — with great 

 satisfaction, as I have before stated. Within a 

 week afterwards all the symptoms of dyspepsia 

 disappeared and the eruption vanished — never to 

 return. Since the year 1837 I have constantly 

 smoked, either the pipe or cigar, w ith the excep- 

 tion of one year, 1838. With the pipe I smoked 

 the Dutch and Havannah K'nasters, rarely less 

 than half a pound a week ; but unable to find 

 any means of effectually getting rid of the dis- 

 gusting oil in the tube of the pipe, I resorted to 

 the cigar ; and for the last ten or twelve years I 

 have smoked the mildest cigars to be procured, 

 chiefly Havannah,'^ my average consumption 

 having been and being one pound of cigars per 

 week, more or less according to my occupation. 



