662, in fol. p. 322.)
Chardin states, the Persians smoked long before the discovery of
America, and had cultivated tobacco time immemorial.
"Coffee without tobacco is meat without salt."--Persian Proverb,
Sale's _Koran_, Preliminary Discourse, 169. ed. 8vo.
In 1634 Olearius found the Russians so addicted to tobacco that they
would spend their money on it rather than bread. (See edit. above
quoted, lib. iii. p. 83.)
According to Prof. Lichtenstein, the Beetjuanen smoked and snuffed long
before their intercourse with Europeans. (_Med. and Chir. Rev._, 1840,
p. 335.)
Liebault, in his _Maison Rustique_, asserts that he found tobacco
growing naturally in the forest of Ardennes. Libavius says that it grows
in the Hyrcinian forest. (Ibid.)
Dr. Cleland shows the three last to be falsehoods(?).
Ysbrants Ides found tobacco in general use among the Ostiaks and other
tribes passed in his route to China, 1692. (Harris's _Coll._, fol. vol.
ii. pp. 925. and 926.)
The story told of Amurath IV. punishing a Turk for smoking seems to be a
mistake, since Amurath only began to reign 1622; whereas Sandys relates
the same story of a certain Morad Bassa, probably Murat III., who began
to reign {155} 1576, and ended 1594. If this be the case, the Turks were
smokers before tobacco was known in England.--In Persia smoking was
prohibited by Shah Abbas. There were two princes of this name. The first
began his reign 1585 A.D., died 1628: the second began 1641, died 1666.
The proclamation against smoking was probably issued by the first, since
(as before mentioned) in 1634 Olearius found the custom firmly
established. If so, the Persians must have been early smokers. Smoking
seems to have obtained at a very remote period among several nations of
antiquity. Dr. Clarke quotes Plutarch on Rivers to show that the
Thracians were in the habit of intoxicating themselves with smoke, which
he supposes to have been tobacco. The _Quarterly Review_ is opposed to
this.
Lafitau quotes Pomp. Mela and Solin to show the same; also Herodotus and
Maximin of Tyre, as evidences to the same custom prevailing amongst the
Scythians, and thinks that Strabo alludes to tobacco in India. (See, for
the Scythians, the _Universal History_.) Logan, in his _Celtic Gaul_,
advances that smoking is of great antiquity in Britain. He says that
pipes of the Celts are frequently found, especially at Brannocktown, co.
Kildare, where in 1784 they were dug up in grea
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