of tobacco-smoking, now so common all over the world, existed in Eastern countries before the discovery of America by Columbus. It is justly claimed for the subject that it possesses interest for a much larger class than professed ethnologists; that it is invested with an absorbing fascination for every earnest student of the history and habits of mankind. For it is maintained that nothing but a deep-seated craving in the nature of human beings for narcotics and stimulants can explain the immediate, rapid, and over-mastering success with which the passion for tobacco spread over the world after its introduction into Europe by the Spaniards. That this should have been so, seems to point directly to the conclusion that before the discovery of the New World the tobacco-plant and the habit of smoking its leaves were unknown elsewhere. Let it be remembered, however, that we have to take into account the farther East, more particularly China, the Cathay of our forefathers, who had found every approach leading into the interior jealously guarded against intrusion from the barbarian of the outer world. Scattered through the pages of ancient historians and naturalists are some curious allusions to a practice occasionally indulged in of inhaling the fumes of burning vegetable substances, either for pleasure’s sake or for medicinal purposes. A few of these may suffice to indicate the shifts men were put to in remote times in order to appease their longing for narcotics of one kind or another.