Читать книгу Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce - E. R. Billings - Страница 11

Nearly four hundred years have passed away since the tobacco plant and its use was introduced to the civilized world. It was in the month of November, 1492, that the sailors of Columbus in exploring the island of Cuba first noted the mode of using tobacco. They found the Indians carrying lighted firebrands (as they at first supposed) and puffed the smoke inhaled from their mouths and nostrils.

The Spaniards concluded that this was a method common with them of perfuming themselves; but its frequent use soon taught them that it was the dried leaves of a plant which they burned inhaling and exhaling the smoke. It attracted the attention of the Spaniards no less from its novelty than from the effect produced by the indulgence.

The use of tobacco by the Indians was entirely new to the Spanish discoverers and when in 1503 they landed in various parts of South America they found that both chewing and smoking the herb was a common custom with the natives. But while the Indians and their habits attracted the attention of the Spanish sailors Columbus was more deeply interested in the great continent and the luxuriant tropical growth to be seen on every hand. Columbus himself says of it:—

"Everything invited me to settle here. The beauty of the streams, the clearness of the water, through which I could see the sandy bottom; the multitude of palm-trees of different kinds, the tallest and finest I had ever seen; and an infinite number of other large and flourishing trees; the birds, and the verdure of the plains, are so amazingly beautiful, that this country excelles all others as far as the day surpasses the night in splendor."

Lowe, gives the following account of the discovery of tobacco and its uses:—

"The discovery of this plant is supposed to have been made by Fernando Cortez in Yucatan in the Gulf of Mexico, where he found it used universally, and held in a species of veneration by the simple natives. He made himself acquainted with the uses and supposed virtues of the plant and the manner of cultivating it, and sent plants to Spain, as part of the spoils and treasures of his new-found World."