The question, then, naturally arises, may not the Chinese and other half civilized nations of Asia, in their prehistoric migrations to the shores of America, have carried with them not only a knowledge of the tobacco-plant and its use, but also the seed of the plant? Certainly they would do so at one period or another with such things as could be conveniently carried for the supply of their immediate wants. A knowledge and use of the tobacco-plant in China, before the days of Columbus, is established; incidental mention is made of tobacco or some other plant that may be used in like manner, in their national records of the year 1300. It has been the custom of every writer on the subject to decry all attempts to seek for the origin of the habit in any part of the Old World. Doctor Cleland, in his learned treatise on _The History and Properties of Tobacco_ (Glasgow, 1840), dismisses the inquiry as the growth of wild assertions by Eastern travellers, or, at best, a mere tradition of the people among whom they travelled, and ‘obviously of no conceivable weight, from the love of antiquity which is so well known a mania of the inhabitants of oriental countries.’ This summary treatment may be convenient, but it is not convincing; nor is it consistent with the open spirit of fair inquiry which would characterise all endeavour to arrive at truth, or to extend the sphere of knowledge. After all, then, we find ourselves in presence of the not improbable hypothesis of an Eastern origin for the tobacco-plant and the habit of smoking its leaves. Let it be conceded that in this we have an instance, among many other of the Chinaman’s way of forestalling the rest of mankind; that it was he who, long ages ago, first planted in American soil the perennial weed which Europe to-day presents to him as a new indulgence discovered by Western enterprise. It must be borne in mind, however, that we have still to deal with another Eastern nation, namely Japan, whose history and associations are closely interwoven with the commerce, customs and culture of China. China in the past was to Japan what Greece in olden times was to Rome. The younger nation derived from the elder much of its knowledge in the arts and habits of life. Viewed in this light it seems altogether reasonable to suppose that if the tobacco plant and the practice of smoking its leaves were known in China before the discovery of America the Japanese would not be ignorant of these things. The question will be considered in the next chapter. CHAPTER VII. A GLIMPSE OF SOCIAL LIFE IN JAPAN.