EARLY SNUFF-TAKING. 835 
make a powder of the leaves, which “they take through a 
eane half a cubit long; one end of this they place in the 
nose, and the other upon the powder, and so draw it up, 
which purges them very much.” 
- This is doubtless the first account that we have of snuff- 
taking; Fairholt says concerning its use :— 
“Tts effects upon the Indians in both instances seem to 
have been more violent and peculiar than upon Europeans 
since.” 
This may be accounted for from the fact of the imperfect 
method of curing tobacco adopted by them and all of the 
natives up to the period of the settlement of Virginia by the 
English. As nearly all of the early voyagers allude to the 
plant and especially to its use it would seem probable that it 
had been cultivated from time immemorial by all the native 
people of the Orinoco ; and at the period of the conquest the 
habit of smoking was found to be alike spread over both 
North and South America. The Tamanacs and the May- 
pures of Guiana wrap maize leaves round their cigars as the 
Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortez. The 
Spaniards since have substituted paper for the leaves of 
maize, in imitation of them. 
“The poor Indians of the forests of the Orinoco know as 
well as did the great nobles at 
the court of Montezuma, that 
the smoke of tobacco is an ex- 
Tobacco at this period was * 
also rolled up in the leaves of ¢ 
the Palm and smoked. Oolum- 
bus found the natives of San Sais saneane 
Salvador smoking after this 
manner. Lobel in his History of Plants* gives an engraving 
* History of Plants, 1576. 
