“Not pure tobacco, but tobacco mixed with other things—something like the cheap cigars which you English are said to smoke!” replied Ravonino with something of a humorous twinkle in his eyes. “But we don’t smoke. We only snuff. In making our snuff we first dry the tobacco leaves and grind them to powder. Then to this we add the ashes of the leaves of a sweet-smelling herb, the mixture being twice as much tobacco as ashes; a small quantity of potash or salt is added, and then it is considered fit for use.”
“Don’t your people smoke at all?” asked Hockins.
“Not much, and never tobacco—except those on the coast who have been corrupted by Europeans. Some of us used to smoke rongona, a kind of hemp. It is a powerful stimulant, and used to be taken by warriors before going out to battle, because it drove them nearly mad, and so fitted them for their bloody work. Government has lately forbidden its use—but it is still used in secret.”
“They’ve got baccy, an’ don’t smoke!” murmured Hockins to himself in a kind of meditative surprise, as though he had just been told that the natives possessed food and did not eat.
“But you don’t smoke?” remarked the guide.
“That’s ’cause I hain’t got baccy nor pipe. You give me pipe and baccy an’ I’ll smoke you into fits in no time.”
“Do you feel the want of it much?”
“Not much. At first I did, most awful, but now I’m gettin’ over it.”
The guide was silent. He might have remarked, “Yet now, if you had the chance, you would enslave yourself again!” but, not being of an argumentative turn of mind, he merely shook his head and changed the subject. It was well, for Hockins was one of those people who, “if convinced against their will, remain of the same opinion still.”
After breakfast, while the young men of the tribe armed themselves and made preparation for the expedition, Ravonino took his friends through the village, the inhabitants of which were evidently as deeply interested in seeing the white men as the latter were in seeing the brown; for each were objects of curiosity to the other.