species of the tobacco-plant, as the
_Nicotiana rustica_, would appear to be indigenous to the country, yet
we have the best reason to conclude that America, if not the exclusive
home of the herb, was the birthplace of its use by man. The first great
explorer of the West found the sensuous natives of Hispaniola rolling up
and smoking tobacco-leaves with the same persistent indolence that
we recognize in the Cuban of the present day. Rough Cortes saw with
surprise the luxurious Aztec composing himself for the _siesta_ in the
middle of the day as invariably as his fellow Dons in Castile. But he
was amazed that the barbarians had discovered in tobacco a sedative
to promote their reveries and compose them to sleep, of which the
_hidalgos_ were as yet ignorant, but which they were soon to appropriate
with avidity, and to use with equal zest. Humboldt says that it had been
cultivated by the people of Orinoco from time immemorial, and was smoked
all over America at the time of the Spanish Conquest,--also that it was
first discovered by Europeans in Yucatan, in 1520, and was there called
_Petum_. Tobacco, according to the same authority, was taken from the
word _tabac_, the name of an instrument used in the preparation of the
herb.

Though Columbus and his immediate followers doubtless brought home
specimens of tobacco among the other spoils of the New World, Jean
Nicot, ambassador to Portugal from Francis II., first sent the seeds
to France, where they were cultivated and used about the year 1560. In
honor of its sponsor, Botany has named the plant _Nicotiana tabacum_,
and Chemistry distinguished as _Nicotin_ its active alkaloid. Sir
Francis Drake first brought tobacco to England about 1586. It owed
the greater part of its early popularity, however, to the praise and
practice of Raleigh: his high standing and character would have sufficed
to introduce still more novel customs. The weed once inhaled, the habit
once acquired, its seductions would not allow it to be easily laid
aside; and we accordingly find that royal satire, public odium, and
ruinous cost were alike inadequate to restrain its rapidly increasing
consumption. Somewhere about the year 1600 or 1601 tobacco was carried
to the East, and introduced among the Turks and Persians,--it is not
known by whom: the devotion of modern Mussulmans might reasonably
ascribe it to Allah himself. It seems almost incredible that the
Oriental type of life and character could have exis