294 "The Soverane Herbe 



thing else the men feel the deprivation of their 

 tobacco. In the latter months of the siege of Lady- 

 smith tobacco was sold for £6 per pound, and a 

 threepenny packet of cigarettes for /s. 6d. Tobacco 

 was the starving garrison's first request when the 

 long-looked-for relief came. 



There are many stories of the part played by the 

 weed in war. When the Light Brigade was ordered to 

 charge at Balaclava, a regimental butcher was engaged 

 in dressing a sheep, smoking the while. In his shirt- 

 sleeves, pipe in mouth and cleaner in hand, he 

 charged with his regiment, and returned still smoking. 

 In the very thick of the fight at Rorke's Drift the 

 English soldiers smoked as hard as they fought, 

 lighting their pipes with burning splinters of wood 

 from the hospital fired by the Zulus. During the 

 Ashanti campaign it was declared to be better to be 

 without quinine than tobacco. In the Boer War 

 our troops have gone into action time after time 

 smoking their pipes. So, too, during the Franco- 

 German War the Germans smoked regularly while 

 fighting. At Saarbrucken the Brunswick Hussars 

 charged, cigars in mouth, into a solid mass of 

 French troops and hail of bullets. Lord Roberts 

 does not smoke, but Lords Wolseley and Kitchener 

 are hard smokers. For a fortnight before Tel-el-Kebir 

 the former did not touch tobacco, but directly the 

 day was won he lit up and smoked six cigars right off 

 the reel. General ' U. S. A.' Grant smoked incessantly 

 during the progress of an engagement. At Rich- 

 mond the number of cigars he reduced to ashes was 

 enorm ous. ' Chinese ' Gordon was never without his 



