_Use of Tobacco before the Discovery of America_ (Vol. iv., p.
208.).--Sandys, in the year 1610, mentions the use of tobacco as a custom
recently introduced, at Constantinople, by the English. (See _Modern
Traveller_.) Meyen, however, in his _Outlines of the Geography of Plants_,
as translated for the Ray Society, says:
"The consumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense extent,
and the practice seems to be of great antiquity; for on very old
sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco pipes which are still
used. {271} _Besides, we now know the plant which furnishes the Chinese
tobacco: it is even said to grow wild in the East Indies. It is certain
that the tobacco plant of Eastern Asia is quite different from the
American species._"
This is the opinion of a botanist at once distinguished for extensiveness
of research and accuracy of detail; although Mr. J. Crawford, in a paper
read before the Statistical Society, on the 15th of November, 1852, seems
to incline to a contrary notion. It is, however, necessary to remark that
his facts tend rather to elucidate the statistics of the plant than its
natural character, so that Meyen's opinion must, I think, stand good until
it be disproved.