Smoking is practised by the natives of Patagonia, who are a tall and muscular class of men, though not such giants as represented by the early voyagers. Hutchinson, in a valuable paper on the Indians of South America has an account of the Pehuenches, one of the principal tribes of Patagonia, in which he states that
"their chief indulgence is smoking. The native pipes are fabricated out of a piece of stone, fashioned into the shape of a bowl, into which is inserted a long brass tube. The latter is obtained by barter at Bohia Blanca. The tobacco in the bowl being lighted, each man of a party takes a suck at the pipe in his turn."
Tilston, who witnessed the operation, describes it as a most ludicrous one.
"The smoker gives a pull at the pipe, gulping in a quantity of Tobacco vapour, the cubic measurement of which my informant would be afraid to guess at. All the muscles of the body seem in a temporary convulsion whilst it is being taken in, and the neighbour to whom the pipe is transferred follows suit by inhaling as if he were trying to swallow down brass tube, bowl, Tobacco, fire, and all. Meanwhile, there issues from the nose and mouth of the previous smoker such a cumulus of cloud as for a few seconds to render his face quite invisible."
Tobacco is more used in Chili than in the other countries on the Pacific side of South America; this is owing to the extensive use of the leaves of the Cocoa plant as a narcotic by the natives of Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia.
South Americans smoking.
We refrain from enlarging on the nature and use of this narcotic, as on some future occasion we may take an opportunity of making some observations on Cocoa, which according to Jonson, holds an undisputed sway over some seven or eight millions of the inhabitants of South America. The Indians formerly inhabiting the high table-lands of what is now called Peru and Bolivia appear prior to the invasion of the Spaniards to have been much further advanced in civilization than the races occupying the other portions of South America; and there is a strong probability that they are of a different origin from the races occupying Chili, Patagonia, Brazil, and the great district washed by the waters of the West Indian Sea. Science as yet cannot give anything like an accurate idea of the time man has existed in these widely-diversified countries, but we cannot go wrong in accepting the statement of Darwin, who observes that
"we must admit that man has inhabited South America for an immensely long period, inasmuch as any change in climate, effected by the elevation of the land must have been extremely gradual."