The monk Romano Pane, a companion of Columbus, gave the first description of the plant. Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo was the first to bring seeds to Spain, where tobacco was cultivated as an ornamental plant until Nicolo Menardes began to extol its medicinal virtues. Soon thereafter it began to be used for smoking and as snuff. Shakespeare makes no reference to the use of tobacco, though it was well known in England during his time. The price was very high and it was used in small quantities by the rich only. The pipes used for smoking tobacco were very small and are known to antiquaries as “elfin pipes.” The smoke was expelled through the nostrils and not the mouth, as this produced the most pronounced narcotic effect. It seems that from the very first strong efforts were made to prevent the use of tobacco, excepting as a medicine. Popes Urban VIII and Innocent XI issued bans without effect. Priests and the sultans of Turkey declared smoking a crime; Sultan Amuret IV decreeing its punishment by the most horrible death. In Russia during the earlier part of the seventeenth century the noses of smokers were cut off. King James I of England issued a “Counterblaste to Tobacco” in which he described its use as “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearly resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless,” to which all users of the weed are condemned. All opposition was of no avail and the use of tobacco has increased steadily up to the present time, and is still on the increase in spite of all boasted civilized progress. Turks and Persians are the greatest smokers in the world. In India all classes and both sexes smoke; likewise in China and Japan. When it was found that even the most cruel death penalty did not prohibit, efforts were made to check its use, and to this effect some ridiculous laws were made. For example, according to a Puritan Blue Law it was a criminal offense to smoke within ten miles of any habitation. Yet it will be recalled that tobacco was extensively cultivated in the colonies, and history informs us that England sent shiploads of “fair maidens” to America to be bartered for with tobacco leaves. Each eligible Puritan planter had the privilege of choosing a maiden who became his property in exchange for from forty to as much as ninety pounds of good tobacco. This barter is referred to in the opening chapters of that interesting novel “To Have and to Hold,” by Mary Johnston.