Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Father Gili
Affirms That The Practice Of Chewing Tobacco Is Unknown To The Indians
Of The Lower Orinoco.
I rather doubt the truth of this assertion,
having been told that the Sercucumas of the Erevato and the Caura,
neighbours of the whitish Taparitos, swallow tobacco chopped small,
and impregnated with some other very stimulant juices, to prepare
themselves for battle.
Of the four species of nicotiana cultivated in
Europe* (* Nicotiana tabacum, N. rustica, N. paniculata, and N.
glutinosa.) we found only two growing wild; but the Nicotiana
loxensis, and the Nicotiana andicola, which I found on the back of the
Andes, at the height of eighteen hundred and fifty toises (almost the
height of the Peak of Teneriffe), are very similar to the N. tabacum
and N. rustica. The whole genus, however, is almost exclusively
American, and the greater number of the species appeared to me to
belong to the mountainous and temperate region of the tropics.
It was neither from Virginia, nor from South America, but from the
Mexican province of Yucatan, that Europe received the first tobacco
seeds, about the year 1559.* (* The Spaniards became acquainted with
tobacco in the West India Islands at the end of the 15th century. I
have already mentioned that the cultivation of this narcotic plant
preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe more than 120 or 140
years. When Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586,
whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal. It was also
previously known in France, where it was brought into fashion by
Catherine de Medicis, from whom it received the name of herbe a la
reine, the queen's herb.) The celebrated Raleigh contributed most to
introduce the custom of smoking among the nations of the north.
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