44 ST NICOTINE 



and when they wish to use them, they take a leaf of their 

 grain (maize) and putting one of the others into it they 

 roll them round tightly together ; then they set fire to one 

 end, and putting the other end into the mouth they draw 

 their breath up through it, wherefore the smoke goes into 

 the mouth, the throat, the head, and they retain it as long 

 as they can, for they find a pleasure in it; and so much do 

 they fill themselves with this cruel smoke that they lose 

 their reason. And there are some who take so much of it 

 that they fall down as if they were dead, and remain the 

 greater part of the day or night stupefied. Some men are 

 found who are content with imbibing only enough of this 

 smoke to make them giddy, and no more. See what a 

 wicked and pestiferous poison from the devil this must be ! 

 It has happened to me several times, that going through 

 the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua, 1 have entered 

 the house of an Indian who had taken this herb, which, in 

 the Mexican language, is called tobacco, and immediately 

 perceiving the sharp fetid smell of this truly diabolical and 

 stinking smoke, I was obliged to go away in haste and 

 seek some other place.' These strong words call forth the 

 remark from his translator, Admiral Smith, that ' surely 

 the royal author of the famous Counterblast must have 

 seen this graphic and early description of a cigar ! ' 

 Though in the same key, Benzoni's is but a feeble breath 

 compared with the fulmination of our British Solomon 

 against the ' lively image and pattern of hell,' or the 

 ' Stygian fumes from the pit that is bottomless ! ' The 

 fame of the Indian weed as a healer of the sick had not 

 reached Europe when Benzoni published his travels 

 through the Spanish possessions of the West, but its 

 medicinal property had not escaped his acute observation. 

 He gives a drawing of the medicine man putting three of 



