as the Indians smoke a
kind of bark which they scrape from the killiconick, an aromatic
shrub, in form resembling the willow; they use also a preparation
made with this and sumach leaves, or sometimes with the latter mixed
with tobacco. Lionel Wafer in his travels upon the Isthmus of Darien
in 1699 saw the plant growing and cultivated by the natives. He
says:--

"These Indians have tobacco amongst them. It grows as the
tobacco in Virginia, but is not so strong, perhaps for want
of transplanting and manuring, which the Indians do not well
understand, for they only raise it from the seed in their
plantations. When it is dried and cured they strip it from
the stalks, and laying two or three leaves upon one another,
they roll up all together sideways into a long roll, yet
leaving a little hollow. Round this they roll other leaves
one after another, in the same manner, but close and hard,
till the roll be as big as one's wrist, and two or three
feet in length. Their way of smoking when they are in
company is thus: a boy lights one end of a roll and burns it
to a coal, wetting the part next it to keep it from wasting
too fast. The end so lighted he puts into his mouth, and
blows the smoke through the whole length of the roll into
the face of every one of the company or council, though
there be two or three hundred of them. Then they, sitting in
their usual posture upon forms, make with their hands held
together a kind of funnel round their mouths and noses. Into
this they receive the smoke as it is blown upon them,
snuffing it up greedily and strongly as long as ever they
are able to hold their breath, and seeming to bless
themselves, as it were, with the refreshment it gives them."

In the year 1534 James Cartier a Frenchman was commissioned to explore
the coast of North America, with a view to find a place for a colony.
He observed that the natives of Canada used the leaves of an herb
which they preserved in pouches made of skins and smoked in stone
pipes. It being offensive to the French, they took none of it with
them on their return. But writing more particularly concerning the
plant he says:--

"In Hochelaga, up the river in Canada there groweth a
certain kind of herb whereof in Summer they make a great
provision for all the year, making great account of it, and
only men use of it