164 ANCIENT HABIT OF SMOKING. 
throngh a stick from which the pith had been removed, the 
bowl being formed of a lump of clay moulded by the fingers 
Br at the time, and 
yp baked in the house 
hold fire. 
“The small branch 
es of the elder tree, 01 
sometimes the stem 
of the briar and 
bramble, are what I 
have seen used, but 
CLAY AND REED PIPES. ‘ even the stem of the 
hemlock and keckse 
are sometimes brought into requisiton for the purpose. 
“T believe that long before the time Dr. Wilson states on 
the authority of Sharpe, that it was common within memory, 
for the old wives of Annandale to smoke a dried white moss 
gathered on the neighboring moors, which they declared to 
be much sweeter than tobacco, and to have been in use 
long before the American weed was heard of; before Sir 
Walter Raleigh wooed and won Elizabeth Throgmorton, or 
Sir Richard Granville voyaged to Virginia with Masters 
Ralph Layne, Thomas Candish, John Arundell, Master 
Stukely, Bremize, Vincent, Heryot, and John Clarke; before 
Sir Francis Drake made his first voyage, or the Spanish 
Armada was dreamed of ; before Sir John Hawkins, Captain 
Price, Coft, Keat or others for whom the honor -of the 
introduction of tobacco has been claimed, drew breath— 
smoking was to some extent indulged in by our forefathers 
and (still medicinally, of course) in this country. In medie- 
val times, when the Ceramic art was but little practiced, and 
when all the domestic vessels that were produced were of 
the rudest and coarsest character both in material, form, and 
decoration, it is not to be expected that pipes for the smok- 
ing of herbs would be manufactured as a matter of sale, and 
those of the people who wished for such an indulgence would 
naturally. be thrown on their own primitive resources such as 
I have described, for instruments for the purpose. 
“A portion of a very rude pipe-head, formed of common 
red clay—a lump of clay moulded by hand, and ornamented 
with small circles pressed into it as from the end of a stick— 
has come under my notice, as have also others of an equally 
rimitive character, found in different parts of this kingdom. 
hese I have no hesitation in ascribing to a pre-Raleigh 
