n the
gulf of Florida.

Tomilson says:--

"The word tobacco appears to have been applied by the
caribbees to the pipe in which they smoked the herb while
the Spaniards distinguished the herb itself by that name.
The more probable derivation of the word is from a place
called Tobaco in Yucatan from which the herb was first sent
to the New World."

Humboldt says concerning the name:--

"The word Tobacco like maize, savannah, cacique, maguey
(agave) and manato, belong to the ancient language of Hayti,
or St. Domingo. It did not properly denote the herb, but the
tube through which the smoke was inhaled. It seems
surprising that a vegetable production so universally spread
should have different names among neighboring people. The
pete-ma of the Omaguas is, no doubt, the pety of the
Guaranos; but the analogy between the Cabre and Algonkin (or
Lenni-Lennope) words which denote tobacco may be merely
accidental. The following are the synonymes in five
languages: Aztec or Mexican, _yetl_; Huron, _oyngona_;
Peruvian, _sayri_; Brazil, _piecelt_; Moxo, _sabare_."

Roman Pane who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage alludes to
another method of using the herb.
They make a powder of the leaves,
which "they take through a cane half a cubit long; one end
of this they place in the nose, and the other upon the
powder, and so draw it up, which purges them very much."

This is doubtless the first account that we have of snuff-taking;
Fairholt says concerning its use:--

"Its effects upon the Indians in both instances seem to have
been more violent and peculiar than upon Europeans since."

This may be accounted for from the fact of the imperfect method of
curing tobacco adopted by them and all of the natives up to the period
of the settlement of Virginia by the English. As nearly all of the
early voyagers allude to the plant and especially to its use it would
seem probable that it had been cultivated from time immemorial by all
the native people of the Orinoco; and at the period of the conquest
the habit of smoking was found to be alike spread over both North and
South America. The Tamanacs and the Maypures of Guiana wrap maize
leaves round their cigars as the Mexicans did at the time of the
arrival of Cortez. The Spaniards since have substituted paper for the
leaves of maize,