The African contributions to our list are also rather extensive, especially from the neighbourhood of the Cape. The leaves of a certain plant (Tarchonanthus camphoratus, Linn.) possessing a camphorated odour, are chewed by the Mahometans, and smoked by the Hottentots and Bushmen instead of tobacco, and, like the “Dagga,” exhibit slight narcotic symptoms. This may be owing to the camphor which they contain. The common camphor, in quantities a little beyond a medium dose, will produce indistinctness of ideas, incoherence of language, an indescribable uneasiness, shedding of tears, a sensation of fear and dread; then the body feels lighter than usual—an idea exists that flying will not only be easy, but a source of pleasure.
The Wild Dagga (Leonotis leonurus, R. Br.) grows wild on the sandy Cape flats. It has a peculiar scent, and a nauseous taste, and seems to produce narcotic effects if incautiously used. The Hottentots are particularly fond of it, and smoke it as tobacco. In the eastern districts of the Cape, an allied species (Leonotis ovata) has a similar reputation, and is used for a like purpose.
In the Mauritius the leaves of the Culen (Psoralea glandulosa) are dried and smoked, while on the western coast of South America they are used in decoction as a beverage, instead of tea.
In Asia, tobacco substitutes have but one or two representatives. One of these has been already alluded to, another consists of the long leaves of a species of Tupistra, called “Purphiok,” which are gathered in Sikkim, chopped up, and mixed with tobacco for the hookah. The leaves of the water-lily are dried, and used in China to mix with tobacco for smoking, to render it milder.
Cigars of stramonium, henbane, and belladonna, may be purchased at the same rate as those made of genuine tobacco, in chemists’ and herbalists’ shops—never having tried them, we have no experience of their flavour.
The majority of the substitutes for tobacco are, after all, very poor pretenders—capable, perhaps, of raising a smoke, but possessed of neither aromatic nor stimulating properties; and those which contain any active properties at all, are of a character so dangerous, as to make their extensive use extremely hazardous. In the former class, we may rank coltsfoot, sage, milfoil, rhubarb, and bogbean; and in the latter, stramonium, henbane, bella-donna, arnica, and lobelia. Those who have been long accustomed to the use of tobacco, seldom, except in times of scarcity or deprivation of that plant, resort to the use of any other. This is the case at home. In the Cape Colony, the united testimony of travellers proves that the Kaffirs are ready to make any sacrifices for tobacco, and prefer it to any of their own indigenous substitutes.
When the tobacco has been found to be too strong, incipient smokers have been known to counteract its effects, and lessen its power, by mixing therewith the flowers of chamomile, which once enjoyed great reputation as a useful medicine. Others, in the absence of tobacco, have resorted to brown paper or tow, which, being smoked through an old or foul pipe, is said to carry with its smoke some of the tobacco flavour, and to be infinitely better than no smoke at all. Juveniles will sometimes, with a piece of cane, or a strip of clematis, imitate their elders, and, in imagination, enjoy the luxury of an Havannah cigar.
A curious anecdote of a Buckinghamshire parson occurs in “Lilly’s History of his Life and Times,” to which we have before referred. “In this year, also, William Breedon, parson or vicar of Thornton in Bucks, was living, a profound divine, but absolutely the most polite parson for nativities in that age, strictly adhering to Ptolemy, which he well understood; he had a hand in composing Sir Christopher Heydon’s ‘Defence of Judicial Astrology,’ being at that time his chaplain; he was so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no tobacco (and I suppose too much drink) he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them.”
Having unmasked the “race of pretenders,” and shown the titles upon which they seek to establish their claims, with Charles Lamb we now bid farewell to Tobacco.
“For I must, (nor let it grieve thee,