OF THE OLD AND NEW WOULD. 239 



brought from America, and even the precise date of 1570, is assigned 

 for its importation into Britain, high authorities in Botany are still 

 found to maintain the indigenous character of the nicotiana rustica, 

 in some parts of the old world, as in northern India, where it is 

 stated to grow wild. DuWalde, (1793.) speaks of tobacco as one of 

 the natural productions of Formosa, whence it was largely imported 

 by the Chinese ; and Savary, Olearius, Chardin, and other writers, 

 are all quoted* to show that the nicotiana Persica, which furnishes 

 the famous shiraz tobacco, is not only indigenous to Persia, (an 

 opinion favoured by high authorities in botany,) but that it was used 

 for smoking from very early times. That all the varieties of the 

 ISicotiana are not confined to the new world is unquestionable. Of 

 some fifty-eight admitted species, the great majority are indeed 

 American, but a few belong to the newer world of Australia, besides 

 those believed to be indigenous to Asia. It is not surprising there- 

 fore, that after all the attention which this subject has latterly, 

 on various accounts, attracted, writers should be found to maintain 

 the opinion that the use of tobacco as a narcotic was known and 

 practised by the Asiatics, prior to the discovery of America. The 

 oriental use of tobacco may indeed be carried back to an era old 

 enough to satisfy the keenest, stickler for the antiquity of the practice, 

 if he is not too nice as to his authorities. Dr. Yates in his Travels 

 in Egypt? describes a painting which he saw on one of the tombs at 

 Thebes, containing the representation of a smoking party. But this 

 is modern compared with a record said to exist in the works of the 

 early fathers, and, at any rate, preserved as an old tradition of the 

 Greek Church, which ascribes the inebriation of the patriarch Noah 

 to the temptation of the Devil by means of tobacco ; so that King- 

 James was not, after al!, without authority for the black stygian 

 parentage he assigns to its fumes ! Professor Johnston — who 

 marshalls various authorities on the Asiatic use of tobacco for smok- 

 ing, prior to the discovery of America, without venturing on any very 

 definite opinion of his own, — quotes Pallas as arguing in favour of 

 the antiquity of the practice from its extensive prevalence in Asia, 

 and especially in China. " Amongst the Chinese," says this writer, 

 "and among the Mongol tribes who had the most intercourse with 

 them, the custom of smoking is so general, so frequent, and has 

 become so indispensable a luxury ; the tobacco-purse affixed to their 

 belt so necessary an article of dress ; the form of the pipes, from 

 which the Dutch seem to have taken the model of theirs, so original ; 



* A. C. M. Exeter. Notes and Queries. Vol. II. p. 151. 



