SYMPOSIUM 27 



to the European explorer, where death in one form or 

 another confronts the traveller at every step, it fell to my 

 lot to be detained at the native village of Obbo during the 

 rainy season, in the midst of an indescribable steam of 

 poisonous vapours arising from a rank luxuriance of vegeta- 

 tion to be seen in no other part of the world. Fever and 

 dysentery were carrying off the natives in large numbers. 

 My wife and myself were both down with fever, when the 

 old chief persuaded me to smoke tobacco, which in the 

 countries bordering on the Nile is cultivated and manu- 

 factured in large quantities. I had never smoked in my 

 life, but I then commenced with Obbo tobacco and pipes, 

 and lived to bless the day I was wise enough to make the 

 experiment. 



' During our pleasant sojourn in the valley of Albara it 

 was my misfortune not to be a smoker. In the cool of the 

 evening we used to sit by the bamboo table outside the 

 door of our house and drink our coffee amidst the beautiful 

 scenery of a tropical sunset, with deep shadows falling into 

 the valley. But a pipe, the long chibouk of the Turk, 

 would have made our home a paradise. On our return to 

 Gondokora I found that the plague had visited the town 

 during our absence, and that the vessel we were to go in to 

 Khartoum was plague-stricken, many of the crew having 

 died of disease. I was so thoroughly convinced of the 

 purifying properties of tobacco that upon the circumstance 

 coming to my knowledge I at once ordered several pounds 

 of tobacco to be burnt on board, chiefly in the cabin, and 

 with the satisfactory result that we all escaped the plague.' 



William Makepeace Thackeray grows pugnacious in 

 defence of his favourite indulgence, and asks, ' What is this 

 smoking, that it should be considered a crime ! I believe 

 in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. 



