show the
use of pipes by the aborigines probably centuries before the discoveries
by Columbus. Many were elaborately carved in porphyry or some other hard
stone, while others were made of baked clay. Others, many of them also
elaborately carved and ornamented, have been found in Mexico. Roman
antiquities show many pipes, but they do not show the use of tobacco. It
is assumed that they were used for burning incense, or for smoking some
aromatic herb or hemp.

The first knowledge of the use of the plant in Cuba was in November, 1492,
when Columbus, on landing near Nuevitas, sent his messengers inland to
greet the supposed ruler of a supposed great Asiatic empire. Washington
Irving thus reports the story as it was told by Navarete, the Spanish
historian. Referring to those messengers, he says: "They beheld several of
the natives going about with firebrands in their hands, and certain dried
herbs which they rolled up in a leaf, and lighting one end, put the other
in their mouths, and continued exhaling and puffing out the smoke. A roll
of this kind they called a tobacco, a name since transferred to the plant
of which the rolls were made. The Spaniards, although prepared to meet with
wonders, were struck with astonishment at this singular and apparently
nauseous indulgence." A few years later, a different method was reported,
by Columbus, as employed in Hispaniola. This consisted of inhaling the
fumes of the leaf through a Y-shaped device applied to the nostrils. This
operation is said to have produced intoxication and stupefaction, which
appears to have been the desired result. The old name still continues
in Cuba, and if a smoker wants a cigar, he will get it by calling for a
"tobacco." The production of the plant is, next to sugar, Cuba's most
important commercial industry. Its early history is only imperfectly known.
There was probably very little commercial production during the 16th
Century, for the reason that there was then no demand for it. The demand
came in the first half of the 17th Century, and by the middle of that
period tobacco was known and used in practically all civilized countries.
The demand for it spread very rapidly, in spite of papal fulminations and
penal enactments. For a time, in Russia, the noses of smokers were cut off.
The early part of the 18th Century saw Cuba actively engaged in production
and shipment. In 1717, Cuba's tobacco was made a monopoly of the Spanish
Government. Under that system,