1615.—"Il tabacco ancora usano qui" (at Constantinople) "di pigliar in conversazione per gusto: ma io non ho voluto mai provarne, e ne avera cognizione in Italia che molti ne pigliano, ed in particolare il signore cardinale Crescenzio qualche volta per medicamento insegnatogli dal Signor don Virginio Orsino, che primo di tutti, se io non fallo, gli anni addietro lo portò in Roma d'Inghilterra."—P. della Valle, i. 76.
1616.—"Such is the miraculous omnipotence of our strong tasted Tobacco, as it cures al sorts of diseases (which neuer any drugge could do before) in all persons and at all times.... It cures the gout in the feet and (which is miraculous) in that very instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies vp into the head, the virtue thereof, as heauy, runs down to the litle toe. It helps all sorts of agues. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they goe to bed, it makes one sleepe soundly, and yet being taken when a man is sleepie and drousie, it will, as they say, awake his braine, and quicken his vnderstanding.... O omnipotent power of Tobacco! And if it could by the smoake thereof chase out deuils, as the smoake of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smell no stronglier) it would serve for a precious Relicke, both for the Superstitious Priests, and the insolent Puritanes, to cast out deuils withall."—K. James I., Counterblaste to Tobacco, in Works, pp. 219-220.
1617.—"As the smoking of tobacco (tambákú) had taken very bad effect upon the health and mind of many persons, I ordered that no one should practise the habit. My brother Sháh 'Abbás, also being aware of its evil effects, had issued a command against the use of it in Irán. But Khán-i-'Alam was so much addicted to smoking, that he could not abstain from it, and often smoked."—Memoirs of Jahángír, in Elliot, v. 851. See the same passage rendered by Blochmann, in Ind. Antiq. i. 164.
1623.—"Incipit nostro seculo in immensum crescere usus tobacco, atque afficit homines occulta quidem delectatione, ut qui illi semel assueti sint, difficile postea abstinent."—Bacon, H. Vitae et Mortis, in B. Montague's ed. x. 189.
We are unable to give the date or Persian author of the following extract (though clearly of the 17th century), which with an introductory sentence we have found in a fragmentary note in the handwriting of the late Major William Yule, written in India about the beginning of last century:[[270]]
"Although Tobacco be the produce of an European Plant, it has nevertheless been in use by our Physicians medicinally for some time past. Nay, some creditable People even have been friendly to the use of it, though from its having been brought sparingly in the first instance from Europe, its rarity prevented it from coming into general use. The Culture of this Plant, however, became speedily almost universal, within a short period after its introduction into Hindostaun; and the produce of it rewarded the Cultivator far beyond every other article of Husbandry. This became more especially the case in the reign of Shah Jehaun (commenced A.H. 1037) when the Practice of Smoking pervaded all Ranks and Classes within the Empire. Nobles and Beggars, Pious and Wicked, Devotees and Free-thinkers, poets, historians, rhetoricians, doctors and patients, high and low, rich and poor, all! all seemed intoxicated with a decided preference over every other luxury, nay even often over the necessaries of life. To a stranger no offering was so acceptable as a Whiff, and to a friend one could produce nothing half so grateful as a [Chillum]. So rooted was the habit that the confirmed Smoker would abstain from Food and Drink rather than relinquish the gratification he derived from inhaling the Fumes of this deleterious Plant! Nature recoils at the very idea of touching the Saliva of another Person, yet in the present instance our Tobacco smokers pass the moistened Tube from one mouth to another without hesitation on the one hand, and it is received with complacency on the other! The more acrid the Fumes so much the more grateful to the Palate of the Connoisseur. The Smoke is a Collyrium to the Eyes, whilst the Fire, they will tell you, supplies to the Body the waste of radical Heat. Without doubt the [Hookah] is a most pleasing Companion, whether to the Wayworn Traveller or to the solitary Hermit. It is a Friend in whose Bosom we may repose our most confidential Secrets; and a Counsellor upon whose advice we may rely in our most important Concerns. It is an elegant Ornament in our private Appartments: it gives joy to the Beholder in our public Halls. The Music of its sound puts the warbling of the Nightingale to Shame, and the Fragrance of its Perfume brings a Blush on the Cheek of the Rose. Life in short is prolonged by the Fumes inhaled at each inspiration, whilst every expiration of them is accompanied with extatic delight...."—(cætera desunt).
c. 1760.—"Tambákú. It is known from the Maásir-i-Rahímí that the tobacco came from Europe to the Dakhin, and from the Dakhin to Upper India, during the reign of Akbar Sháh (1556-1605), since which time it has been in general use."—Bahár-i'-Ajam, quoted by Blochmann, in Ind. Antiq. i. 164.
1878.—It appears from Miss Bird's Japan that tobacco was not cultivated in that country till 1605. In 1612 and 1615 the Shogun prohibited both culture and use of tabako.—See the work, i. 276-77. [According to Mr. Chamberlain (Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 402) by 1651 the law was so far relaxed that smoking was permitted, but only out-of-doors.]
TOBRA, s. Hind. tobṛā, [which, according to Platts, is Skt. protha, 'nose of a horse,' inverted]. The leather nose-bag in which a horse's feed is administered. "In the Nerbudda valley, in Central India, the women wear a profusion of toe-rings, some standing up an inch high. Their shoes are consequently curiously shaped, and are called tobras" (M.-Gen. R. H. Keatinge). As we should say, 'buckets.' [The use of the nosebag is referred to by Sir T. Herbert (ed. 1634): "The horses (of the Persians) feed usually of barley and chopt-straw put into a bag, and fastened about their heads, which implyes the manger." Also see [TURA].]
1808.—"... stable-boys are apt to serve themselves to a part out of the poor beasts allowance; to prevent which a thrifty housewife sees it put into a tobra, or mouth bag, and spits thereon to make the Hostler loathe and leave it alone."—Drummond, Illustrations, &c.