NATURAL STYPTIC. 
508 
celebrated Kaleigb contributed most to introduce the custom 
of smoking among the nations of the north. As early, as the 
end of the sixteenth century, bitter complaints were made 
in England “ of this imitation of the manners of a savage 
people. ’ It was feared that, by the practice of smoking 
tobacco, “ Englishmen would degenerate into a barbarous 
ststo ** ^ 
When the Ottomacs of Uruana, by the use of niopo 
(their arborescent tobacco), and of fermented liquors, have 
thrown themselves into a state of intoxication, which lasts 
several days, they kill one another -without ostensibly fight- 
ing. The most vindictive among them poison the nail of 
their thumb with eurare ; and, according to the testimony 
of the missionary, the mere impression of this poisoned nail 
may become a mortal wound, if the cuvure be very active, 
and immediately mingle with the mass of the blood. W hen 
the Indians, after a quarrel at night, commit a murder, they 
throw the dead body into the river, fearing that some indi- 
cations of the violence committed on the deceased may be 
observed. “ Every time,” said Father Bueno, “ that I see 
the women fetch water from a part of the shore to which 
they are not accustomed to go, I suspect that a murder has 
been committed in my mission.” 
We found in the Indian huts at Uruana the vegetable 
substance called “ touchwood of ants,” + with which we had 
become acquainted at the Great Cataracts, and. which is 
employed to stop bleeding. This substance, which might 
potato in Europe more than 120 or HO years. When Raleigh brought 
tobacco from 'Virginia to England in 1586, whole fields of it were already 
cultivated in Portugal. It was also previously known in France, where 
it was brought into fashion by Catherine de Medieis, from whom it 
received the name of “ herbe a la reine,” — “the queen’s herb.” 
* This remarkable passage of Camden is as follows, Annal. Elizabet, 
p. 143 (1585) ; “ ex illo sane tempore [tabacum] usu cepit esse creber- 
rimo in Anglia et magno pretio dum quamplurimi graveolenlem lllius 
fumum per tubulum testaceum hauriunt et mox e naribus efflant ; adeo 
ut Anglorum corporum in barbarorura naturam degenerasse videantur, 
quum iidem ac barbari delectentur.” We may see from this passage 
that they emitted the smoke through the nose; but at the court of Mon- 
tezuma the pipe was held in one hand, while the nostrils were stopped 
with the other, in order that the smoke might be more easily swallowed. 
(Life of Raleigh, vol. i, p. 82). 
f Yesca de hornjgas. 
