The treatment of tobacco-leaf to prepare it for use in smoking, snuffing, and chewing requires great skill and care, and is directed by the tradition and experience of centuries. As is the case with “hay,” the dried tobacco-leaf undergoes a kind of fermentation, and, in fact, more than one such change. The cause of the fermentation is a micro-organism which multiplies in the dead leaf and causes chemical changes, just as the yeast organism grows in “wort” and changes it to “beer.” It is said that the flavour and aroma of special tobaccos is due to special kinds of ferment, and that by introducing the Havannah ferment or micro-organism to tobacco-leaves grown away from Cuba, you can give them much of the character of Havannah tobacco! A very valuable kind of tobacco is the Roumelian, from which the best Turkish cigarettes are made. It has a very delicate flavour, and very small quantities of an aromatic kind prepared from a distinct variety of tobacco plant grown near Ephesus and on the Black Sea (probably a cultivated variety of Nicotiana rustica) are judiciously blended with it. This blending, and the use of the very finest qualities of tobacco-leaf, are essential points in the production of the best Turkish cigarettes. The so-called “Egyptian” cigarettes are made from less valuable Turkish tobacco, with the addition of an excess of the aromatic kind. It is a mistake to suppose that opium or other matters are used to adulterate tobacco. The only proceeding of the kind which occurs is the mixing of inferior, cheap, and coarse-flavoured tobaccos with better kinds. Water and also starch are used fraudulently to increase the weight of leaf-tobacco. But skilful “blending” is a legitimate and most important feature in the manufacture of cigars, cigarettes, and smoking mixtures. The first “smoking” of tobacco seen by Europeans was that of the Caribs or Indians of San Domingo. They used a very curious sort of tubular pipe, shaped like the letter Y. The diverging arms were placed one up each nostril, and the end of the stem held in the smoke of burning tobacco-leaves, which was thus “sniffed up” into the nose. The North American Indians, on the other hand, had pipes very similar to those still in use. The natives of South America smoked the rolled leaf (cigars), chewed it, and took it as snuff.