170 TOBACCO : ITS HISTORY. 



figure on a similar occasion, if the anecdote be 

 not an invention. It is said that, having one 

 day retired to his room to smoke, after the 

 manner of the inhabitants of Virginia, he gave 

 himself up wholly to his meditations, and, with- 

 out paying attention to what he was doing, 

 namely, smoking, he ordered his servant to bring 

 him a cup of beer. The servant, on bringing 

 the beer, surprised to see what he had never 

 seen before, threw it immediately in his master's 

 face, and ran down the stairs, crying out, as he 

 descended, that his master's head was on fire, 

 the smoke coming out both at his mouth and 

 nostrils ! 



Se non e vero, e hen trovato. But that Sir 

 Walter Raleigh did, by his own practice, contri- 

 bute to the smoking of tobacco in this country, 

 there is no doubt whatever. — 



*' Hail migMy Ealeigli ! to whose name we owe 

 The use and knowledge of this sovereign plant." 



Certainly the practice of the Indians was much 

 more extensive in using the weed Old Hariot 

 tells us — 



" that there is an herbe which is sowed apart by itselfe, 



