At such times he turns with joy to his ready comforter, the peace-pipe. Breathing in the fragrant breath his thoughts are set free to wander at will; old places are revisited, and lost memories revived, always tinged with pleasing thoughts of the things most cherished and the faces most loved. At peace with himself and the world, he gazes into the starlit heavens and exclaims, “Hail! thou invigorator of the weary, consoler of the sorrowful, uncomplaining, faithful friend.’” ‘I too, would add my experience of the weed’s healthful influence on weary humanity battling with plague and pestilence in tropical lands.’ Here Sir Samuel Baker relates how African savages had taught him the virtues of the plant. ‘On that continent of dreadful night, yet so fascinating to the European explorer, where death in one form or another confronts the traveller at every step, it fell to my lot to be detained at the native village of Obbo during the rainy season, in the midst of an indescribable steam of poisonous vapours arising from a rank luxuriance of vegetation to be seen in no other part of the world. Fever and dysentery were carrying off the natives in large numbers. My wife and myself were both down with fever, when the old chief persuaded me to smoke tobacco, which in the countries bordering on the Nile is cultivated and manufactured in large quantities. I had never smoked in my life, but I then commenced with Obbo tobacco and pipes, and lived to bless the day I was wise enough to make the experiment. ‘During our pleasant sojourn in the valley of Albara it was my misfortune not to be a smoker. In the cool of the evening we used to sit by the bamboo table outside the door of our house and drink our coffee amidst the beautiful scenery of a tropical sunset, with deep shadows falling into the valley. But a pipe, the long chibouk of the Turk, would have made our home a paradise. On our return to Gondokora I found that the plague had visited the town during our absence, and that the vessel we were to go in to Khartoum was plague-stricken, many of the crew having died of disease. I was so thoroughly convinced of the purifying properties of tobacco that upon the circumstance coming to my knowledge I at once ordered several pounds of tobacco to be burnt on board, chiefly in the cabin, and with the satisfactory result that we all escaped the plague.’