According to etiquette and the custom of the court, Persian princes must have seven hours for sleep. When they get up, they begin to smoke the narghilè or shishe, and they continue smoking all day long. When there is company, the narghilè is first presented to the chief of the assembly, who, after two or three whiffs, hands it to the next, and so on it goes descending; but in general, the great smoke only with the great, or with strangers of distinction. The Schah smokes by himself, or only with one of his brothers, the tombak, the smoke of which is of a very superior kind, the odour being exquisite. It is the finest tombak of Shiraz.
Mr. Neale says—“Talk about the Turks being great smokers; why, the Siamese beat them to nothing. I have often seen a child only just able to toddle about, and certainly not more than two years of age, quit its mother’s breast to go and get a whiff from papa’s cigaret, or, as they are here termed, borees—cigarets made of the dried leaf of the plantain tree, inside of which the tobacco is rolled up.”
In Japan, after tea drinking, the apparatus for smoking is brought in, consisting of a board of wood or brass, though not always of the same structure, upon which are placed a small fire-pan with coals, a pot to spit in, a small box filled with tobacco cut small, and some long pipes with small brass heads, as also another japanned board or dish, with socano—that is, something to eat, such as figs, nuts, cakes, and sweetmeats. “There are no other spitting pots,” says Kœmpfer, “brought into the room but those which come along with the tobacco. If there be occasion for more, they make use of small pieces of bamboo, a hand broad and high being sawed from between the joints and hollowed.”
In Nicaragua, the dress of the urchins, from twelve or fourteen downwards, consists generally of a straw hat and a cigar—the latter sometimes unlighted and stuck behind the ear, but oftener lighted and stuck in the mouth—a costume sufficiently airy and picturesque, and excessively cheap. The women have their hair braided in two long locks, which hang down behind, and give them a school-girly look, quite out of keeping with the cool deliberate manner in which they puff their cigars, occasionally forcing the smoke in jets from their nostrils.[7]
On the Amazon, all persons—men and women—use tobacco in smoking; when pipes are wanting, they make cigarillos of the fine tobacco, wrapped in a paper-like bark, called Towarè; and one of these is passed round, each person, even to the little boys, taking two or three puffs in his turn.[8]
The Papuans pierce their ears and insert in the orifice, ornaments or cigars of tobacco, rolled in pandan leaf, of which they are great consumers.
A Spaniard knows no crime so black that it should be visited by the deprivation of tobacco. In the Havana, the convict who is deprived of the ordinary comforts, or even of the necessaries of life, may enjoy his cigar, if he can beg or borrow it; if he stole it, the offence would be considered venial. At the doorway of most of the shops hang little sheet-iron boxes filled with lighted coals, at which the passer-by may light cigars; and on the balustrade of the staircase of every house stands a small chafing dish for the same purpose. Fire for his cigar, is the only thing for which a Spaniard does not think it necessary to ask and thank with ceremonious courtesy. If he has permitted his cigar to go out, he steps up to the first man he meets—nobleman or galley slave, as the case may be—and the latter silently hands his smoking weed; for it is impossible that two Spaniards should meet and not have one lighted cigar between them. The light obtained, the lightee returns the cigar to the lighter in silence. A short and suddenly checked motion of the hand, as the cigar is extended, is the only acknowledgment of the courtesy. This is never, however, omitted. Women smoke as well as men; and in a full railroad car, every person, man, woman, and child, may be seen smoking. To placard “no smoking allowed,” and enforce it, would ruin the road.
A regular smoker in Cuba will consume perhaps twenty or thirty cigars a day, but they are all fresh. What we call a fine old cigar, a Cuban would not smoke.
At Manilla, the women smoke as well as the men. One manufactory employs about 9,000 women in making the Manilla cheroots; another establishment employs 3,000 men in making paper cigars or cigarettes. The paper cigars are chiefly smoked by men; the women prefer the “puros,” the largest they can get.
The Binua of Johore, of both sexes, indulge freely in tobacco. It is their favourite luxury. The women are often seen seated together weaving mats, and each with a cigar in her mouth. When speaking, it is transferred to the perforation in the ear. When met paddling their canoes, the cigar is seldom wanting. The Mintira women are also much addicted to tobacco, but they do not smoke it.