The use of tobacco in Brazil dates back an unknown number of centuries: the natives smoked the leaf, both in the form of rolled cigars and also in small quantities in wooden pipes, made in the fashion which Europe subsequently adopted. The first European to make any record of this habit was that painstaking Frenchman, André Thevet, who came to Rio de Janeiro with Villegaignon’s unfortunate expedition in November, 1555; he says that the native name for the plant was “betun” or “petum,” and the drawing in his book (_La Cosmographie Universelle_) identifies it with _Nicotiana tabacum_. In the Amazonian regions both men and women smoked tobacco as a recognized form of enjoyment, and its effects were so much appreciated by another traveller, Piso, that he declared it to be one of the three American plants which had no equal in the Old World for beneficial uses—coca, tobacco, and the root of mandioca. Tobacco-smoking by American natives had first been noticed by the crew of Columbus in 1492. During the latter half of the sixteenth century Europeans began to take to the use of tobacco, the Spanish colonies sending it home from the West Indian Islands and the Portuguese from Brazil; it was not until about 1600 that it was seriously cultivated for export in the Brazilian _capitanias_, and when experiments were made with this object it was found that Bahia yielded the best product, although that of Pernambuco was also good, and the plant produced freely all along the littoral, from Amazonas to the lagoons of Rio Grande do Sul. Tobacco became during colonial days one of the important exports of Brazil, together with dyewoods and sugar. Brazil marks her extensive cultivation of tobacco from about 1850, after her ports had been thrown open to world commerce and the flags of all lands were seen in her ports. In 1860 she exported 4,609 tons; in 1870, 13,276 tons and in 1873, nearly 17,000 tons, of which over 14,500 tons came from Bahia. By the year 1886 Brazilian exportation had risen to 23,000 tons, the value was over 15,000,000 francs (or more than $3,000,000) and a part of this to the value of 3,500,000 francs, “was returned to us made up into so-called Havana cigars,” remarks Almeida. “It was not fashionable to smoke any tobacco or cigars other than of the Havana kind in Brazil fifteen years ago.” Now ideas have changed: Brazil realizes the value of her own product, and Bahia has no hesitation in challenging Vuelta Abajo to a comparison. Soils of the two regions are similar in qualities. Farther north, the Brazilian _fumo_ has a stronger, less delicate flavour, and is largely consumed at home; cigarettes of Pará, Amazonas, Parahyba, Pernambuco, Matto Grosso, Minas, and many other states are manufactured in large quantities, and sold cheaply; very good Pará cigarettes made of the black local tobacco sell at ten for a “tostão”—a fraction over two cents.