The use of tobacco has become universal through the Chinese empire; men, women, children, everybody smokes almost without ceasing. They go about their daily business, cultivate the fields, ride on horseback, and write constantly with the pipe in their mouths. During their meals, if they stop for a moment, it is to smoke a pipe; and if they wake in the night, they are sure to amuse themselves in the same way. It may easily be supposed, therefore, that in a country containing, according to M. Huc, 300,000,000 of smokers, without counting the tribes of Tartary and Thibet, who lay in their stocks in the Chinese markets, the culture of tobacco has become very important. The cultivation is entirely free, every one being at liberty to plant it in his garden, or in the open fields, in whatever quantity he chooses, and afterwards to sell it, wholesale or retail, just as he likes, without the Government interfering with him in the slightest degree. The most celebrated tobacco is that obtained in Leao-tong in Mantchuria, and in the province of Sse-tchouen. The leaves, before becoming articles of commerce, undergo various preparatory processes, according to the practice of the locality. In the South, they cut them into extremely fine filaments; the people of the North content themselves with drying them and rubbing them up coarsely, and then stuff them at once into their pipes. According to etiquette and the custom of the court, Persian princes must have seven hours for sleep. When they get up, they begin to smoke the narghilè or shishe, and they continue smoking all day long. When there is company, the narghilè is first presented to the chief of the assembly, who, after two or three whiffs, hands it to the next, and so on it goes descending; but in general, the great smoke only with the great, or with strangers of distinction. The Schah smokes by himself, or only with one of his brothers, the tombak, the smoke of which is of a very superior kind, the odour being exquisite. It is the finest tombak of Shiraz. Mr. Neale says—“Talk about the Turks being great smokers; why, the Siamese beat them to nothing. I have often seen a child only just able to toddle about, and certainly not more than two years of age, quit its mother’s breast to go and get a whiff from papa’s cigaret, or, as they are here termed, _borees_—cigarets made of the dried leaf of the plantain tree, inside of which the tobacco is rolled up.”