The Beginning of Smoking 9 



that country. Montezuma had his pipe brought in 

 with much ceremony by the chief ladies of his court 

 after he had dined, and smoked it in state. Benzoni, 

 of Milan, in the account of his travels in America 

 from 1 541 to 1546, minutely describes the practice. 

 In Hispaniola the natives stored and dried the 

 tobacco-leaves. ' When they wish to use them they 

 take a leaf of the grain [maize], and putting one of 

 the others into it, they roll them round tight 

 together ; then they set fire to one end, and putting 

 the other end into the mouth, they draw their breath 

 up through it, wherefore the smoke goes into the 

 mouth, the throat, the head, and they retain it as 

 long as they can, for they find a pleasure in it, and 

 so much do they fill themselves with this cruel smoke 

 that they lose their reason. And there are some who 

 take so much of it that they fall down as if they were 

 dead and remain the greater part of the day and 

 night stupefied. Some men are found who are content 

 with imbibing enough of this smoke to make them 

 giddy and no more. See,' concludes Benzoni in a 

 sentence worthy of James I. — ' See what a wicked and 

 pestiferous poison this must be.' 



Jacques Cartier, in his voyage up the St. Lawrence 

 in iS3Si found tobacco as highly prized in bleak 

 Canada as in the warmer regions of Central America. 

 ' The Indians,' he wrote, ' have a certain herb, of 

 which they lay up a store every summer, having first 

 dried it in the sun. It is used only by men. They 

 always carry some of it in a small bag hanging round 

 their necks. In this bag they also keep a hollow 

 tube of wood or stone. Before using the herb they 



