90 DRINKING TOBACCO. 
and cigars in Christendom, and the royal workshops of 
Seville are still the most extensive in Europe. Other mon- 
archs monopolized the business in their dominions, and all 
began to reap enormous profits from it, as most do at this 
day. In the year 1615 tobacco was first planted in Holland ; 
and in Switzerland in 1686. As soon as its cultivation 
became general in Spain and Portugal the tobacco trade was 
“farmed out,” bringing an enormous revenue to those king- 
doms. About the beginning of the Seventeenth Century the 
Portuguese introduced into \Hindostan and Persia* two 
things, pine-apples and tobacco. To the pine-apples no 
objection seems to have been made; but to the tobacco the 
most strenuous resistance was offered by the sovereigns of 
the two countries. Spite, however, of .punishments and pro- 
hibitions the use of tobacco spread with the rapidity of 
lightning. 
In England, tobacco taking soon became a favorite custom 
not only with the loiterers about taverns and other public 
places, but among the courtiers of Elizabeth. Smoking was 
called drinking tobacco, as the fashionable method was to 
“put it through the nose” or exhale it through the, nostrils. 
At this period tobacco seemed to have nearly the same effect 
as it did upon the Indian, producing a sort of intoxication; 
thus in “The Perfuming of Tobacco” (1611) it is said: 
“The smoke of tobacco drunke or drawen by a pipe, filleth 
the membranes of the braine, and astonisheth and filleth 
many persons with such joy and pleasure, and sweet losse of 
senses, that they can by no means be without it.” 
The term “drinking tobacco” was not confined to Eng- 
land, but was used in Holland, France, Spain and Portugal, 
as the same method of blowing the smoke through the nos- 
trils, seemed to be everywhere in vogue. . 
The use of tobacco increased very rapidly soon after its 
importation from Virginia. The Spaniards and Portuguese 
had hitherto monopolized the trade, so that it brought 
enormous prices, some kinds selling for its weight in silver. 
As soon as its culture commenced in Virginia the demand for 
West India tobacco lessened and Virginia leaf soon came 
