134 ‘BRAZILIAN TOBACCO. 
reason for some hours, and renders them furious in battle.” 
Humboldt, however, has shown that this stimulating snuff ig ' 
not the product of the tobacco plant, but of a species of acacia, 
Niopo being made from the pods of the plant after they have 
undergone a process of fermentation. Captain Burton, when 
traveling in the Highlands of Brazil, found the tobacco plant 
growing spontaneously, which made him conclude that it is 
indigenous to Brazil. He found the “ Aromatic Brazilian ” 
a kind of tobacco with thin leaves and a pink flower, which is 
“much admired in the United States, and there found to lose 
its aroma after the second year.” It is usually asserted that 
the tobacco grown in Brazil contains only two per cent. of 
nicotine, but Captain Burton is disposed to doubt this, as he 
states that some varieties of the “holy herb” grown at Sa’a’ 
Paulo and Nimos suggests a larger proportion. In the small 
towns in the Highlands of Brazil, Captain Burton found that 
excellent cigars, better than many “ Havannas,” were retailed 
at a halfpenny each. In La Plata, Paraguay, and other 
countries to the south of Brazil, nearly every person smokes, 
and an American traveler quoted by Mr. Cooke states that 
women and girls above thirteen years of age use the weed in 
the form of quids. A magnificent Hebe, arrayed in satin and 
flashing in diamonds, “puts you back with one delicate hand, 
while with the fair taper fingers of the other she takes the 
tobacco out of her mouth previous to your saluting her.” A 
European visiting Paraguay for the first time is rather aston- 
ished at the conduct of the fair beauty, but such is the force 
of custom that the squeamishness of the new-comer is soon 
overcome, when he finds that he has to kiss every lady to 
whom he is introduced ; and the traveler says that “ one half 
of those you meet are really tempting enough to render you 
reckless of consequences.” : 
Smoking is practised by the natives of Patagonia, who are 
a tall and muscular class of men, though not such giants as 
represented by the early voyagers. Hutchinson, in a ‘valua- 
ble paper on the Indians of South America has an account 
of the Pehuenches, one of the principal tribes of Patagonia, 
