io8 ST NICOTINE 



For nearly a century they had been in possession of Goa ; 

 they held important seats of commerce in various other 

 parts of India, and had command of the greater part of the 

 oriental trade. These earliest of European explorers in 

 the far East, having about the close of the fifteenth century 

 made a successful passage round the Cape of Good Hope, 

 were not slow to secure for themselves a footing on the 

 western shores of Asia, and onward to the Indian 

 Archipelago. Wherever they settled they introduced the 

 American habit of smoking, and eagerly was it adopted by 

 the different peoples with whom they had dealings. In the 

 annals of Java, tobacco is stated to have been imported 

 into that island, and the habit of smoking it taught to the 

 natives by the Portuguese in 1601. To the Portuguese 

 and the Spaniards, fortified later by the prodigious puffing 

 powers of the Dutch, may be fairly ascribed whatever 

 credit may be due for spreading a knowledge in the 

 Eastern World of the habit which, for weal or for woe, has 

 exercised a more potent witchery over man's life than 

 probably any other indulgence, largely modifying and 

 usually soothing and sobering his temperament. It seems 

 but reasonable to suppose that if the plant and its use as 

 a narcotic had been known in the East generally, 

 independently of Europe, the indefatigable Jesuits, who 

 penetrated into almost every nook of the Old World likely 

 to afford a see to Rome, would have made the discovery 

 and noted the fact with their usual accuracy. The 

 illustrious traveller and naturalist, Palias, however, takes a 

 different view of the question. ' Amongst the Chinese,' 

 he writes, ' and amongst the Mongolian tribes who had 

 the most intercourse with them, the custom of smoking 

 is so general, so frequent, and has become so necessary 

 a luxury, the form of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem 



