CHAPTER II. 
TOBACCO. ITS DISCOVERY. 
FeV EARLY four hundred years have passed away 
PUN. since the tobacco plant and its use was introduced 
to the civilized world. It was in the month of 
November, 1492, that the sailors of Columbus in 
exploring the island of Cuba first noted the mode of using 
tobacco. They found the Indians carrying lighted firebrands 
(as they at first supposed) and puffed the smoke inhaled from 
their mouths and nostrils. 
The Spaniards concluded that this was a method common 
with them of perfuming themselves ;,but its frequent use soon 
taught them that it was the dried leaves of a plant which 
they burned inhaling and exhaling the smoke. It attracted 
the attention of the Spaniards no less from its novelty than 
from the effect produced by the indulgence. 
The use of tobacco by the Indians was entirely new to the 
Spanish discoverers and when in 1503 they landed in various 
parts of South Anierica they found that both chewing and 
smoking the herb was a common custom with the natives. 
But while the Indians and their habits attracted the attention 
of the Spanish sailors Columbus was more deeply interested | 
in the great continent and the luxuriant tropical growth to 
be seen on every hand. Columbus himself says of it :— 
“Everything invited me to settle here. The beauty of 
the streams, the clearness of the water, through which I 
could see the sandy bottom; the multitude of palm-trees of — 
different kinds, the tallest and finest I had ever seen; and 
an infinite number of other large and flourishing trees; the 
