Java is said to have possessed it before 1496. Dr. Ruschenberg says,
"We are informed the Portuguese met with it on their first visit to Java."—Voy. of U.S.S. Peacock, vol. ii. p. 456, Lond. ed. 8vo. 1838.
Crauford dates its introduction into Java, 1601, but admits that the natives had traditions of having possessed it long before. (Indian Archipelago, vol. i. pp. 104. 409, 410. 8vo.) Rumphius, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, found it universal even where the Portuguese and Spaniards had never been.
Savary, in his Parfait Négociant, states that the Persians have used tobacco 400 years, and probably received it from Egypt. (See Med. Chir. Review, 1840, p. 335.)
Olearius found it fully established in Persia, 1637, only about fifty years after its arrival in England. (Lond. 1662, in fol. p. 322.) Chardin states, the Persians smoked long before the discovery of America, and had cultivated tobacco time immemorial.
"Coffee without tobacco is meat without salt."—Persian Proverb, Sale's Koran, Preliminary Discourse, 169. ed. 8vo.
In 1634 Olearius found the Russians so addicted to tobacco that they would spend their money on it rather than bread. (See edit. above quoted, lib. iii. p. 83.)
According to Prof. Lichtenstein, the Beetjuanen smoked and snuffed long before their intercourse with Europeans. (Med. and Chir. Rev., 1840, p. 335.)
Liebault, in his Maison Rustique, asserts that he found tobacco growing naturally in the forest of Ardennes. Libavius says that it grows in the Hyrcinian forest. (Ibid.)
Dr. Cleland shows the three last to be falsehoods(?).