to that of smell. He has
resolved to dry the different plants which appear to him most proper
for the use to which he destines them, and to submit them afterwards
to a trial by fire. Will not the smoke which escapes from them easily
enable him to discover the qualities which he requires, since it is in
smoke that they are to evaporate, if he succeeds in his researches?

Of this grand collection of aromatics, two plants, at last, come off
victorious. One is the petunia, that charming flower which at present
decorates all our gardens, whence the enemies of tobacco may one day
banish it; so it is only with trembling that I here announce its
relationship to the nicotiana; the other, which, like the petunia,
grows in profusion in the islands as well as on the continent of
Southern America, is the herb _coca_, improperly so called, for its
precious leaves, which are to the natives of Peru and Chili, what the
_betel_ is for the Indians of Malabar, grow on an elegant shrub.[1]

[Footnote 1: The _erythroxylum coca_.]

These two plants, separately or together, composed, thanks to a slight
amalgam of chalk, sea-water, and bruised pepper-corns, the most
delicious tobacco.

Now, half awake, Selkirk smokes, as he busies himself with
constructing some necessary article, such as a ladder, a stool, a
basket of rushes, with which he is completing the furniture of his
house; he smokes while fishing, and while hunting; on his return to
his dwelling, he lies down at the entrance of his grotto, on his bank
of turf, re-lights his pipe at his fire, and smokes; at the hour of
breakfast or of dinner, seated beneath the shade of his mimosa, his
elbow on the table, his Bible open before him, he smokes still.

Well! notwithstanding these pleasures so long desired, notwithstanding
this addition to his comfort, notwithstanding his pipe, this vague
uneasiness sometimes assails him anew.

He ascribes it to enfeebled health; and yet he remains active and
vigorous; he ascribes it to the powerful odors of certain trees which
affect his brain. These trees he destroys around him, but his
uneasiness continues; he ascribes it to his food, the insipidity of
the fish which he has eaten without salt, since his quarter of pork is
consumed, and his stores of pickled fish exhausted. In fact, the flesh
of fish has for some time given him a nausea, occasioned frequent
indigestions; he renounces it; his stomach recovers its tone; but his
fits of torpor and mela