Tobacco is found growing along the whole western sea-board of South America until we reach the northern boundaries of Patagonia. Far inland on the banks of the Amazon, Rio Niger, and other great rivers, the weed has been found in luxurious abundance, with a delightful fragrance.
Stephens, in his "Travels in Central America," says that "the ladies of Central America generally smoke—the married using tobacco, and the unmarried, cigars formed of selected tobacco rolled in paper or rice straw. Every gentleman carries in his pocket a silver case, with a long string of cotton, steel and flint, and one of the offices of gallantry is to strike a light. By doing it well, he may help to kindle a flame in a lady's heart; at all events, to do it bunglingly would be ill-bred. I will not express my sentiments on smoking as a custom for the sex. I have recollections of beauteous lips profaned. Nevertheless, even in this I have seen a lady show her prettiness and refinement, barely touching the straw on her lips, as it were kissing it gently and taking it away. When a gentleman asks a lady for a light, she always removes the cigar from her lips."
A Model Cigar.
The Rev. Canon Kingsley, in his fascinating novel of "Westward Ho!" has some quaint remarks on the method of smoking described by Lionel Wafer, surgeon to Dampier, which are well worth quoting. He says,
"When they, (the Darien Indians,) will deliberate on war or policy, they sit round in the hut of the chief; where being placed, enter to them a small boy with a cigarro of the bigness of a rolling-pin, and puffs the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hands funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise, and so on till the Tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the tree of meditation, bearing the flower of eloquence, and in due time the fruit of valiant action."
Tobacco in the form of cigarettes, is extensively used by the inhabitants of Nicaragua, Guiana, and the dwellers on the banks of the Orinoco, and the use of the weed is not confined to the male sex, but is freely used both by the female and juvenile portions of the community. Mr. Squier, in his "Travels in Nicaragua," states that the dress of the young urchins consists mainly of a straw hat and a cigar—the cigar when not in use being stuck behind the ear, in the manner in which our clerks place their pens. The natives of Guiana use a tube or pipe not unlike a cheroot, made from the rind of the fruit of a species of palm. This curious pipe is called a "Winna," and the hollow is filled with tobacco, the smoking of which affords much enjoyment to the denizens of the swampy regions of Guiana.
Mr. Cooke, in "The Seven Sisters of Sleep," states that a tube much resembling the "Winna" of Guiana was some years ago to be met with in the Tobacconists' Shops in London. The Indian dwelling in the dense forests in the region of Orinoco has found that tobacco is an excellent solace to relieve the monotony of his life; he uses it "not only to procure an afternoon nap, but also to induce a state of quiescence which they call dreaming with their eyes open." We find from voyagers up the Amazon, that smoking prevails not merely amongst the natives inhabiting the regions which skirt that great river, but also amongst the people on the banks of its numerous tributaries. Mr. Bates the distinguished Naturalist, when making researches far up one of the tributaries of the Amazon, found tobacco extensively cultivated, and some distinguished makers of cigarettes. One maker, Joan Trinidade, was noted for his Tobacco and Tauri cigarettes. This cigar is so named from the bark in which the tobacco is rolled. Some of the tribes inhabiting the district of the lower Amazon indulge in snuff-taking. This snuff is not made from tobacco, it is the produce of a plant of the leguminous order, the seeds being carefully collected and thoroughly dried in the sun before they are pounded in a mortar, when the powder is ready for use. The snuff-making season is quite an event in a Brazilian village, the week or so during which it lasts forming a kind of religious festival mingled with a good deal of indulgence of fermented liquors, chiefly of native origin.
Humboldt, when traveling in South America, found in use among the Ottomac Indians a powder called Niopo, or "Indian snuff." Niopo is a powerful stimulant, a small portion of it producing violent sneezing in persons unaccustomed to its use. Father Gumilla says:—"This diabolical powder of the Ottomacs, furnished by an adolescent tobacco plant, intoxicates them through the nostrils, deprives them of reason for some hours, and renders them furious in battle." Humboldt, however, has shown that this stimulating snuff is not the product of the tobacco plant, but of a species of acacia, Niopo being made from the pods of the plant after they have undergone a process of fermentation. Captain Burton, when traveling in the Highlands of Brazil, found the tobacco plant growing spontaneously, which made him conclude that it is indigenous to Brazil. He found the "Aromatic Brazilian" a kind of tobacco with thin leaves and a pink flower, which is "much admired in the United States, and there found to lose its aroma after the second year." It is usually asserted that the tobacco grown in Brazil contains only two per cent. of nicotine, but Captain Burton is disposed to doubt this, as he states that some varieties of the "holy herb" grown at Sa'a' Paulo and Nimos suggests a larger proportion. In the small towns in the Highlands of Brazil, Captain Burton found that excellent cigars, better than many "Havannas," were retailed at a halfpenny each. In La Plata, Paraguay, and other countries to the south of Brazil, nearly every person smokes, and an American traveler quoted by Mr. Cooke states that women and girls above thirteen years of age use the weed in the form of quids. A magnificent Hebe, arrayed in satin and flashing in diamonds, "puts you back with one delicate hand, while with the fair taper fingers of the other she takes the tobacco out of her mouth previous to your saluting her." A European visiting Paraguay for the first time is rather astonished at the conduct of the fair beauty, but such is the force of custom that the squeamishness of the new-comer is soon overcome, when he finds that he has to kiss every lady to whom he is introduced; and the traveler says that "one half of those you meet are really tempting enough to render you reckless of consequences."