“He was perfumed like a milliner; And, ’twixt his finger and his thumb, he held A pouncet box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took’t away again; Who, therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff.” In this quotation we also meet with the “pouncet box,” which seems to have been a small box having a “pounced” or perforated cover, containing perfumes, the scent of which escaping from the open work at the top was regarded as a preservative against contagion. From the pouncet box the perfumes were inhaled. It was probably not till a century after the introduction of tobacco, that the triturated dust was commonly in use, and there became any occasion for the _snuff-box_. Humboldt gives an account of a curious kind of snuff, as well as an extraordinary method of inhaling it, which came under his notice while travelling in South America. “The Ottomacs,” he says, “throw themselves into a peculiar state of intoxication, we might say of madness, by the use of the powder of _niopo_. They gather the long pods of an acacia (made known by him under the name of _Acacia niopo_), cut them into pieces, moisten them, and cause them to ferment. When the softened seeds begin to grow black, they are kneaded like paste, mixed with some flour of cassava and lime procured from the shell of a _helix_ (snail), and the whole mass is exposed to a very brisk fire, on a gridiron made of hard wood. The hardened paste takes the form of small cakes. When it is to be used, it is reduced to a fine powder, and placed on a dish, five or six inches wide. The Ottomac holds this dish, which has a handle, in his right hand, while he inhales the niopo by the nose, through the forked bone of a bird, the two extremities of which are applied to the nostrils. This bone, without which the Ottomac believes that he could not take this kind of snuff, is seven inches long; it appears to be the leg bone of a large species of plover. The niopo is so stimulating, that the smallest portions of it produce violent sneezing in those who are not accustomed to its use.” Father Gumilla says, “this diabolical powder of the Ottomacs, furnished by an arborescent tobacco plant, intoxicates them through the nostrils, deprives them of reason for some hours, and renders them furious in battle.” A custom analagous to this, La Condamine observed among the natives of the Upper Maranon. The Omaguas, a tribe whose name is intimately connected with the expeditions in search of El Dorado, have, like the Ottomacs, a dish, and the hollow bone of a bird, and a powder called _curupa_, which they convey to their nostrils by means of these, in a manner identical with that of the Ottomacs. This powder is also obtained from the seed of a kind of acacia, apparently closely allied to, if not the same as the niopo.