AS A JTABCOTIO 
507 
the habit of calling the niogjo or cwrwpa tree-tobacco) has 
been cultivated from time immemorial by all the native 
P®°P" e ^ ie Orinoco ; and at the period of the conquest 
the habit of smoking was found to be alike spread over both 
aN or th and South America The Tamanacs and the May- 
pures of Guiana wrap maize-leaves round their cigars, as the 
Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortes The 
Spaniards have substituted paper for the leaves of maize, in 
mutation of them. The poor Indians of the forests of the 
Orinoco know as well as did the great nobles at the court of 
Montezuma, that the smoke of tobacco is an excellent nar- 
cotic ; and they use it not only to procure their afternoon nap 
but also to put themselves into that state of quiescence' 
which they call dreaming with the eyes open, or day-dreaminq. 
The use of tobacco appears to me to be now very rare in 
the missions ; and in .New Spain, to the great regret of the 
revenue-officers, the natives, who are almost all descended from 
the lowest ciass of the Aztec people, do not smoke at all. 
leather Grill affirms, that the practice of chewing tobacco is 
unknown to the Indians of the Jjower Orinoco. I rather 
doubt the truth of this assertion, having been told that the 
Sercucumas of the Erevato and the Caura, neighbours of 
the whitish Taparitos, swallow tobacco chopped small, and 
impregnated with some other very stimulant juices, to’ pre- 
pare themselves for battle. Of 'the four species of nico- 
tiana cultivated in Europe* we found only two growing 
wild ; but the Nicotiana loxensis, and the Nieotiana andi- 
cola, which I found on the back of the Andes, at the height 
of eighteen hundred and fifty toises (almost the height of 
the Peak of Teneriffe), are very similar to the 1ST. tabaeum 
and K. rustiea. The whole genus, however, is almost exclu- 
sively American, and the greater number of the species 
appeared to me to belong to the mountainous and temperate 
region of the tropics. 
It was neither from Virginia, nor from South America, 
but from the Mexican province of Yucatan, that Europe 
received the first tobacco seeds, about the year 1559.f The 
* Nicotiana tabaeum, N. rustiea, N. panieuiata, andN. glutinosa. 
+ The Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco in the West India 
Islands at the end of the 15th century. I have already mentioned that 
the cultivation of this narcotic plant preceded the cultivation of th« 
