declare unto you, that he who travels through the East without
smoking, does not know the East.

It is strange that our Continent, where the meaning of Rest is unknown,
should have given to the world this great agent of Rest. There is nothing
more remarkable in history than the colonization of Tobacco over the whole
Earth. Not three centuries have elapsed since knightly Raleigh puffed its
fumes into the astonished eyes of Spenser and Shakspeare; and now, find me
any corner of the world, from Nova Zembla to the Mountains of the Moon,
where the use of the plant is unknown! Tarshish (if India was Tarshish) is
less distinguished by its "apes, ivory, and peacocks," than by its
hookahs; the valleys of Luzon, beyond Ternate and Tidore, send us more
cheroots than spices; the Gardens of Shiraz produce more velvety _toombek_
than roses, and the only fountains which bubble in Samarcand are those of
the narghilehs: Lebanon is no longer "excellent with the Cedars," as in
the days of Solomon, but most excellent with its fields of Jebelee and
Latakiyeh. On the unvisited plains of Central Africa, the table-lands of
Tartary, and in the valleys of Japan, the wonderful plant has found a
home. The naked negro, "panting at the Line," inhales it under the palms,
and the Lapp and Samoyed on the shores of the Frozen Sea.

It is idle for those who object to the use of Tobacco to attribute these
phenomena wholly to a perverted taste. The fact that the custom was at
once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position
and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in
the physical constitution of man. Its effect, when habitually used, is
slightly narcotic and sedative, not stimulating--or if so, at times, it
stimulates only the imagination and the social faculties. It lulls to
sleep the combative and destructive propensities, and hence--so far as a
material agent may operate--it exercises a humanizing and refining
influence. A profound student of Man, whose name is well known to the
world, once informed me that he saw in the eagerness with which savage
tribes adopt the use of Tobacco, a spontaneous movement of Nature towards
Civilization.

I will not pursue these speculations further, for the narghileh (bubbling
softly at my elbow, as I write) is the promoter of repose and the begetter
of agreeable reverie. As I inhale its cool, fragrant breath, and partly
yield myself to the sensation of healthy rest