The Tobacco Tiller: A Tale of the Kentucky Tobacco Fields

Behold, friend, a multitude traversing a road shaded at its edge by mighty plants whose leaves are thick, broad, and rank in their odor,—the nicotiana tabacum. Who are they of the multitude?
They are those who have had to do with the making of the history of the weed whose cousins are the thorn-apple, and the night-shade, from the time its existence came to be known to the civilized nations.
Listen, friend, to the roll-call.
Ye whose bread was the banana,—whose garb was the sunshine,—whose gods were worshiped in the smoke-cloud from the burning leaf of the Petun,—whose weapons of war were arrows, poison-tipped in the oil of tobacco,—ye red barbarians of Central America, of the off lying islands, and of the farther northward country; ye from whom the world learned to use tobacco,—answer to your names!
Sir of the silken robe and waving plume,—dizzy with visions of the wealth of the Montezumas to be conquered,—you who in the beginning of the sixteenth century, presented the Indian weed to your Sovereign at Madrid,—Fernando Cortez—answer to your name!
Sir Frances Drake, the first son of Old England to look to the borders of the Peaceful Ocean,—bring forward Ralph Lane, starving pearl-hunter of Roanoke Island, whom you rescued. Answer, Lane, you who introduced the Indian custom of drinking tobacco into your country!
Noble prisoner of the Tower,—chivalrous subject of Her Sovereign Majesty, Elizabeth, in whose honor was named the sunny land which grew the herb of enchantment,—you who made the herb fashionable in Britain,—Sir Walter Raleigh, answer to roll call!
Silversmith, maker of the pipe of silver of the Queen's Favorite, and of the scales that enabled him to ascertain the weight of the smoke of a pipeful of tobacco, and win his majesty's wager,—answer to your name!
You, whose name, by courtesy of the great Swedish student of nature, the Indian's weed bears,—John Nicot, of the Country of Charlemagne, answer roll-call!
And you, Madame, of the day-fair face, and the night-black heart, wife to one King, and mother to another,—huntress, builder of the Tuileries,—you, at whose feet lie the victims of that mid-summer night of horror, the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day,—you, Madame, first snuff-taker of Europe, and christener of the Herbe de La Reine,—Catherine de Medici,—murderess,—answer to roll-call!