OE THE OLD AND NEW WOBLD. 255 



and winterberry leaves are prepared by passing them through the 

 top of the flame, or more leisurely drying them over the fire, without 

 allowing them to burn. Among the Creeks, the Chocktaws, and 

 other Indians in the south, the leaves of the sumach, prepared in a 

 similar manner, answer the like purpose. The leaf of the winter- 

 berry, or tea berry, (coHlieria procumbens,) has a pleasant aroma, 

 which may have had some influence on its selection. The Indians 

 of the north west ascribe to it the further property of giving them 

 wind, and enabling them to hold out longer in running ; but the 

 main object of all such additions appears to be to dilute the tooacco,and 

 thereby admit of its prolonged enjoyment. Having both chewed and 

 smoked the winterberry leaf prepared by the Indians, I am able to 

 speak positively as to the absence of any narcotic qualities, and I 

 presume that with it and all the other additions to the tobacco, the 

 main object is to provide a diluent, so as to moderate the effects, and 

 prolong the enjoyment of the luxury. The same mode is employed 

 with ardent spirits. Mr. Kane remarks of the Chinook Indians : 

 it is a matter of astonishment how very small a quantity of whisky 

 suffices to intoxicate them, although they always dilute it largely in 

 order to prolong the pleasure they derive from drinking. 



The custom of increasing the action of the tobacco fumes on the 

 nervous system, by expelling them through the nostrils, though now 

 chiefly confined to the Indians of this continent, appears to have been 

 universally practised when the smoking of tobacco was introduced 

 into the old world. It has been perpetuated in Europe by those who 

 had the earliest opportunities of acquiring the native custom. The 

 Spaniard still expels the smoke through his nostrils, though using a 

 light tobacco, and in such moderation as to render the influence of the 

 narcotic sufficiently innocuous. The Greek sailors in the Levant very 

 frequently retain the same practice, and with less moderation in its use. 

 Melville also describes the Sandwich Islanders, among whom tobacco 

 is of such recent introduction, as having adopted the Indian custom, 

 whether from imitation or by a natural savage instinct towards excess ; 

 and evidence is not wanting to prove that such was the original practice 

 of the English smoker. Paul Hentzner, in his " Journey into Eng- 

 land." in 1598,* among other novelties describes witnessing at the 

 playhouse, the practice, as then newly borrowed from the Indians of 

 Virginia. " Here," he says, " and every where else, the English are 



* Malone quotes from epigrams and satires of the same date,— eighteen years before the 

 death of Shakespear,— to prove that playgoers, even at so early a date, were attended by 

 pages, with pipes and tobacco, which they smoked on the stage, where the wits were then 

 wont to sit. Vide Notes and Queries, vol. X., p. 49. 



