‘Much doubting me if aught I have said can profit this goodly company, I will call upon one who has seen the plant in its native soil and can describe its uses among the Indians. For the herb, which is commonly called tobacco, hath many names and divers virtues.’ Then rose before the recumbent throng, the historian of England’s first colony in the New World, Thomas Harriot, mathematician and astronomer. He began:— ‘A brief and true report I will render you of what I learned of the herb, the truth of which can be attested by Ralf Lane, the worthy governor of the new found land of Virginia. It befel me that I went out with a number of my countrymen to that far-off land in the Western Seas the great Columbus had discovered, that I might make record of all that happened concerning us on that perilous venture. It was undertaken by the orders of Sir Walter Raleigh, and was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. Soon after we had made our peace with the natives, and they were of a peaceful race, not caring for bloody strife or for plunder, we found them making a fume of a dried leaf, which they rolled up in a leaf of maize, of the bigness of a man’s finger. By rubbing a stone with a stick, in a cunning way they had learned from some divine power, they contrived to kindle fire and putting a light to the leaf they smoked it, as is done by mortals in these days. It was the leaf of an herb which is sowed apart by itself and is called by the inhabitants uppówoc. They use it also in powder. The leaves thereof being dried and crushed small, they take the fumes or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay into their stomach and head, from whence it purgeth superfluous humours, and it openeth all the pores and passages of the body, by which means the use thereof preserveth the body in health, and they know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal people in England were oftentimes affected. ‘This herb is of so precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods are marvellously delighted therewith. Whereupon they sometimes make hallowed fires and cast some of the powder therein for a sacrifice; being in a storm upon the waters, to pacify their gods they cast some into the air and into the water: so a wear for fish being newly set up they cast some therein and into the air; also after an escape from danger they cast some into the air likewise; but all is done with strange gestures, stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of hands, holding up hands, and staring up into the heavens, uttering therewithal and chattering strange words and noises.