ioo ST NICOTINE 



whereon is represented a king smoking from a round 

 vessel, attached to which is a long reed.' Hours have 

 been spent in vain at the British Museum in making careful 

 search for this interesting object. Doctor Wallis Budge, 

 who presides over the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities, 

 knows nothing of a cylinder bearing an inscription of a 

 king smoking a pipe. He has, however, a record to the 

 effect that Mr. Badger, on February 8th, 1845, gave the 

 Museum ' the squeeze of an inscription, the impression of 

 a seal, and a bronze object.' Doctor Budge warily 

 remarked : ' I must remind you that in 1845 all sorts of 

 nonsense was talked about Assyrian objects ; but that two 

 men [a second writer had been mentioned who had 

 evidently copied, on faith, from Mr. Walpole] should state 

 such a thing without verification is remarkable. I am 

 sorry for your wasted time and my own ! ' Assyrian 

 cylinders in the British Museum are numerous, and interest 

 in them is heightened by written explanations in our own 

 tongue placed by the side of each of the markings upon 

 them, giving also the date or period to which the object 

 belongs. The student is thus enabled to grasp with his 

 senses lessons in history which, without this aid, would be 

 vague and unreal. Yet, so grotesque are some of the 

 figures, that little need for wonder if the eye of faith 

 should discorer what it seeks for. 



The ascetic of the Greek Church, however, can eclipse 

 this story of Nimrod and the Assyrian monarch who loved 

 his pipe, with a tradition carefully preserved in its archives 

 of Noah himself, tempted by the Evil One, having fallen 

 under the intoxicating fumes of tobacco. The ingenuous 

 scribe relates (though this may be apocryphal) that Noah, 

 resting upon the summit of Mount Ararat after his toils on 

 the swollen waters, happened to place his hand on a 



