off to sleep, and the third swings in a hammock attended by the doctor. Benzoni relates how in La Espanola and the adjacent islands sick men went to the place where the smoke was to be administered, and when they were thoroughly intoxicated by it, the cure was mostly effected. ‘On returning to his senses the patient told a thousand stories of his having been at the council of the gods, and other high visions.’ And as to the origin of the plant, let the old chieftain of the Susquehanna tribe himself relate the story. It will merely be necessary to introduce him to the reader seated with his family, and a few braves gathered around him, listening to the words of a Swedish missionary, who expounds to them the creed of the Christian and the scriptural narrative of our first parents. The sermon over, the old chief, with easy grace and measured words, replies: ‘What you have told us is very good, we thank you for coming so far to tell us those things you have heard from your mothers; in return we will tell you what we have heard from ours. ‘In the beginning we had only flesh of animals to eat, and if they failed they starved. Two of our hunters having killed a deer and broiled part of it, saw a young woman descend from the clouds, and seat herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the other, “It is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let us offer some of it to her.” They accordingly gave her the tongue. She was pleased with its flavour, and said, “Your kindness shall be rewarded, come here thirteen moons hence and you shall find it.” They did so, and found where her right hand had touched the ground maize growing, where her left hand had been, kidney-beans, and where she had sat they found tobacco!’ CHAPTER IV TOBACCO IN RELATION TO HEALTH AND CHARACTER But oh, what witchcraft of a stronger kind, Or cause too deep for human search to find, Makes earth-born weeds imperial man enslave, Not little souls, but e’en the wise and brave? ARBUCKLE. Is smoking injurious to health? is an old and oft-repeated question which has agitated men’s minds for fully three centuries, and out of which has grown a literature of peculiar interest, now signalised by royal Counterblasts and Papal Bulls, now rising in grateful pæans for the blessing conferred on weary humanity by the weed whose— quiet spirit lulls the lab’ring brain, Lures back to thought the flights of vacant mirth, Consoles the mourner, soothes the couch of pain, And breathes contentment round the humble hearth.