ANTIQUITY OF TOBACCO-SMOKING 99 



toying with Marc Antony as she plays with her jewelled 

 narpeesh.' His enthusiasm is kindled by glowing tales of 

 Eastern life, stretching back to the remotest ages ; he sees 

 the folly of entertaining for a moment the thought that 

 Asia could be indebted to America for the luxury of the 

 pipe. ' We can hardly suppose,' he writes, ' that in the 

 comparatively short space of time since the continent of 

 America was discovered by us, the habit could have spread 

 through Europe to the very utmost corners of Asia ; that 

 the Burman would smoke his cigar as he does, and the 

 wild man of the forest of Ceylon would make his hand into 

 a bowl and smoke out of it. These people, perfect wild 

 beasts, double up the hand, curving the palm, and thus 

 form a species of pipe ; a green leaf protects the hand ; 

 within this the weed is placed, and thus they smoke. This 

 is certainly the youth of smoking. Adam may have 

 practised this method, even in the days of his innocence.' 



It is, perhaps, a pity Mr. Walpole did not feel 

 satisfied with this display of youthful gaiety. Possibly he 

 saw that something was still wanting ; that his new-born 

 idea of an Eastern origin for the weed he loved was too 

 weak to stand without support. At that very moment 

 some evil genius whispered in his ear the fun of sending 

 the reader a wool-gathering to the British Museum. Then 

 it dawned upon him that among the marvels of antiquity 

 the excavations of Botta and Layard were laying bare to an 

 astonished world was an Assyrian relic which would bear 

 oracular testimony to the truth of the old Arabic manu- 

 script found at Mosul, and that henceforth Nimrod must be 

 regarded as the paladin of the pipe. So Mr. Walpole goes 

 on to say ; ' If the curious reader will go to the British 

 Museum he will there see an Assyrian cylinder, found at 

 Mosul, and presented to the Institution by Mr. Badger, 



