TOBACCO, s. On this subject we are not prepared to furnish any elaborate article, but merely to bring together a few quotations touching on the introduction of tobacco into India and the East, or otherwise of interest.
[? c. 1550.—"... Abū Kīr would carry the cloth to the market-street and sell it, and with its price buy meat and vegetables and tobacco...."—Burton, Arab. Nights, vii. 210. The only mention in the Nights and the insertion of some scribe.]
" "It has happened to me several times, that going through the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua I have entered the house of an Indian who had taken this herb, which in the Mexican language is called tabacco, and immediately perceived the sharp fetid smell of this truly diabolical and stinking smoke, I was obliged to go away in haste, and seek some other place."—Girolamo Benzoni, Hak. Soc. p. 81. [The word tabaco is from the language of Hayti, and meant, first, the pipe, secondly, the plant, thirdly, the sleep which followed its use (Mr. J. Platt, 9 ser. N. & Q. viii. 322).]
1585.—"Et hi" (viz. Ralph Lane and the first settlers in Virginia) "reduces Indicam illam plantam quam Tabaccam vocant et Nicotiam, qua contra cruditates ab Indis edocti, usi erant, in Angliam primi, quod suam, intulerunt. Ex illo sane tempore usu coepit esse creberrimo, et magno pretio, dum quam plurimi graveolentem illius fumum, alii lascivientes, alii valetudini consulentes, per tubulum testaceum inexplebili aviditate passim hauriunt, et mox e naribus efflant; adeo ut tabernae Tabaccanae non minus quam cervisiariae et vinariae passim per oppida habeantur. Ut Anglorum corpora (quod salse ille dixit) qui hac plantâ tantopere delectantur in Barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur; quum iisdem quibus Barbari delectentur et sanari se posse credant."—Gul. Camdeni, Annal. Rerum Anglicanum ... regn. Elizabetha, ed. 1717, ii. 449.
1592.—
"Into the woods thence forth in haste shee went
To seeke for hearbes that mote him remedy;
For shee of herbes had great intendiment,
Taught of the Nymphe which from her infancy
Her nourced had in true Nobility: