11 
With regard to Tobacco and Pituri, humanity at large has 
endorsed the conclusions arrived at by the uncivilised man. The 
first thing now offered by the European traveller to a newly- 
discovered savage race is tobacco. I was much struck with this 
Tobacco-want when passing through Torres Straits lately. 
Steaming slowly among the islands of that calm sea the vessel 
encountered a native and his wife in a bark canoe. The only 
word they used was “ Tabac, tabac !” A loaf of bread was 
thrown to them, but this did not satisfy ; and in the wake of the 
steamer there could still be heard the cry, “ Tabac, tabac !” 
Inhaling burning vegetable fumes is mentioned by Herodotus, 
Diosorides, and Pliny, for particulars of which consult Pereira’s 
Elements of Materia Medica and references given; and Catlin, 
in his “ North American Indians,” p. 281, tells us : — “ There are 
many weeds and leaves and barks of trees which are narcotics, 
and of spontaneous growth in their countries, which the Indians 
dry and pulverize and carry in pouches and smoke to great 
excess, and which in several languages, when thus prepared, is 
called 4 K’nick-k’neck.’ These are smoked in pipes made of 
red steatite, from the celebrated pipe-stone quarry. But the 
combustion of dried tobacco leaves, without doubt, originated in 
tropical America. “ When Columbus and his followers arrived 
at Cuba in 1492 they for the first time beheld the custom of 
smoking cigars” — see Pereira ; and, according to Loudon, “Sir 
Walter Ealeigh first introduced smoking ; in the house in which 
he lived at Islington are his arms on a shield, with a tobacco- 
plant on the top.” The universal use of Tobacco in Asia has led 
some moderns to think the practice must have been an old 
custom. But the following from an Indian work in the library 
of the Royal Asiatic Society at Bombay seemed so conclusive 
that I copied it in my note-book : — 
Punjab products, vol. 1. Baden H. Powell, Boorkee, 1868, p. 288. 
Tobacco — Tamaku. First known in 1492 by Columbus and his 
followers. 
The universal practice of smoking in the East is very remarkable, 
but it has been introduced : not only is there no indigenous wild 
species of tobacco in Asia, but there is evidence to show that it was 
not introduced before the 17th century. Lane says that tobacco was 
introduced into Turkey and Egypt in the 17th century, and to Java 
in 1601. 
It would seem from the remarkable facts about Tobacco and 
Pituri that some important cravings of human nature are satisfied 
by the narcotic principle ; and though Burns says of alcohol — 
Inspiring bold Sir Barleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil ; 
Wi’ usquabae we’ll face the devil ! 
yet there is no narcotic in the world the use of which has been 
so satisfactory to humanity as Tobacco. 
