‘No, surely not,’ responds Inglis of Indian frontier fame. ‘Often did I regale my weary body and brain with a pipe after a hard day’s sport with rifle and hound on the track of the beasts of the jungle, or after a fierce bout with the courageous wild boar, whose splendid fighting qualities are little known out of India. It happens occasionally that the huntsman finds himself far out on a desolate track when
The night-cloud has lowered
And the sentinel star sets her watch in the sky.
At such times he turns with joy to his ready comforter, the peace-pipe. Breathing in the fragrant breath his thoughts are set free to wander at will; old places are revisited, and lost memories revived, always tinged with pleasing thoughts of the things most cherished and the faces most loved. At peace with himself and the world, he gazes into the starlit heavens and exclaims, “Hail! thou invigorator of the weary, consoler of the sorrowful, uncomplaining, faithful friend.’”
‘I too, would add my experience of the weed’s healthful influence on weary humanity battling with plague and pestilence in tropical lands.’ Here Sir Samuel Baker relates how African savages had taught him the virtues of the plant.
‘On that continent of dreadful night, yet so fascinating to the European explorer, where death in one form or another confronts the traveller at every step, it fell to my lot to be detained at the native village of Obbo during the rainy season, in the midst of an indescribable steam of poisonous vapours arising from a rank luxuriance of vegetation to be seen in no other part of the world. Fever and dysentery were carrying off the natives in large numbers. My wife and myself were both down with fever, when the old chief persuaded me to smoke tobacco, which in the countries bordering on the Nile is cultivated and manufactured in large quantities. I had never smoked in my life, but I then commenced with Obbo tobacco and pipes, and lived to bless the day I was wise enough to make the experiment.
‘During our pleasant sojourn in the valley of Albara it was my misfortune not to be a smoker. In the cool of the evening we used to sit by the bamboo table outside the door of our house and drink our coffee amidst the beautiful scenery of a tropical sunset, with deep shadows falling into the valley. But a pipe, the long chibouk of the Turk, would have made our home a paradise. On our return to Gondokora I found that the plague had visited the town during our absence, and that the vessel we were to go in to Khartoum was plague-stricken, many of the crew having died of disease. I was so thoroughly convinced of the purifying properties of tobacco that upon the circumstance coming to my knowledge I at once ordered several pounds of tobacco to be burnt on board, chiefly in the cabin, and with the satisfactory result that we all escaped the plague.’
William Makepeace Thackeray grows pugnacious in defence of his favourite indulgence, and asks, ‘What is this smoking, that it should be considered a crime! I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. The fact is that the cigar is a rival to the ladies and their conqueror too. Do they suppose they will conquer? Let them look over the wide world and see for themselves that their adversary has overcome it. Germany has been puffing for over three-score years and more, France smokes to a man. Do they think they can keep the enemy out of England? Pshaw! Look at Nicotiana’s progress. Ask the club-houses. I, for my part, think it not at all unlikely that a bishop may be seen now and then lolling out of the Athenæum with a cheroot in his mouth, or at any rate, a pipe stuck in his shovel hat.’
Bulwer Lytton waxes warm over the inestimable blessings of the pipe. He declares that it is a great comforter, and a pleasant soother! ‘Blue devils fly before its honest breath! It ripens the brain, it opens the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage, and acts like a Samaritan. He who doth not smoke hath either known no great grief, or refuseth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from heaven. What, softer than woman? Yes, for the woman teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to soothe. Woman consoles us it is true, while we are young and handsome, when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale and the weed in that; Jupiter, hang out thy balance and weigh them both; and if thou give preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee—O Jupiter! try the weed.’