A BOND OF SYMPATHY.
The Russians, doubtless, have a natural appetite for tobacco, in
common with all races of mankind, whether Digger Indians, Caffirs,
Hindoos, Persians, Turks, Americans, or Dutchmen; for I never yet have
met with a people who did not take to the glorious weed, in some shape
or other, as naturally as a babe to its mother's breast. _Vodka_, or
native brandy, is their favorite beverage, when they can get it. In
that respect, too, they share a very common attribute of humanity--a
passion for strong drinks. Nevertheless, although the love of
intoxicating liquors is pretty general in Russia, the habit of smoking
which usually accompanies it is not so common as in the more southern
parts of Europe. A reason for this may be found in the prohibitions
established by the government against the general use of tobacco. It
is true, any person who pleases may enjoy this luxury, but by a rigid
ukase of the emperor the restrictions amount very nearly to an
absolute prohibition, so far as the common people are concerned.
Smoking is prohibited in the streets of every town and city throughout
the empire, and any infraction of the law in this respect, whether by
a native or foreigner, is visited by a heavy penalty. I hear of
several instances in St. Petersburg and Moscow of arrests by the
police for violations of the imperial decree. The reason given by the
Russians themselves for this despotic regulation is, that the cities
being built mostly of wood, extensive and disastrous conflagrations
have arisen from carelessness in street-smoking. It is difficult to
see how the risk is lessened in this way, for the prohibition does not
extend to smoking within doors. A carpenter may indulge his propensity
for cigars over a pile of shavings, provided it be in his workshop,
but he must not carry a lighted cigar in his mouth on any of the
public thoroughfares. The true reason perhaps is, that the emperor
considers it a useless and expensive habit, and thus makes use of his
imperial power to discountenance it, as far as practicable, among his
subjects. They may drink _vodka_ if they please, because that only
burns their insides out; but they must not smoke cigars, as a general
rule, because that impairs their moral perceptions. Hence cigars are
not permitted to be sold at any of the tobacco-shops in packages of
less than ten. Few of the lower classes ever save up money enough to
buy ten cigars at a time, so that if they desire to smoke they must go
to a cheap groggery and indulge in cheap cigaritos. Owing to the want
of opportunity, therefore, smoking is not a national characteristic,
as in Germany and the United States.
This, I must confess, gave me a rather gloomy impression of Russia,
and accounted in some measure for the grave and uncongenial aspect of
the people. One always likes to find some bond of sympathy between
himself and the inhabitants of the country through which he travels. I
remember reading somewhere of a Scotchman who had occasion to visit
the United States on business connected with an establishment in
Glasgow. He was disgusted with the manners and customs of the people;
had no faith in their capacity for business; found nothing to approve;
considered them vulgar, impertinent, irresponsible, and irreligious;
and finally was about to take his departure with these unfavorable
views, when he discovered, from some practical experience, that they
possessed, in addition to all these traits, wonderful shrewdness in
the art of swindling. New dodges that he had never dreamt of turned up
in the line of debits and credits; he was interested--delighted! A
familiar chord was touched. He retracted all he had said; formed the
most exalted opinion of the people; reluctantly returned to Glasgow,
and there made a fortune in the course of a few years! It is said that
he now swears by the eternal Yankee nation--the only oath he was ever
known to make use of--and expresses a desire to settle in the United
States, if he can find a suitable part of the country abounding in
fogs, rain, sleet, snow, and wind.
Somewhat akin to this is the affection with which a traveler in a
foreign land regards every mountain, tree, or flower that reminds him
of his own country. The most pleasant parts of my experiences of
mountain scenery are those that most resemble similar experiences at
home. Some suggestion or hint of a familiar scene has often caused me
to enjoy what would otherwise perhaps have attracted no particular
attention. I remember once, while traveling in Brazil, near the Falls
of Tejuca, some very pleasant scenes of early life came suddenly to
mind, without any thing that I could perceive at the moment to give
rise to such a train of thought. The aspect of the country was
different from any I had ever seen before; and it was not till I
discovered a bunch of violets close by my feet that I became aware
that it was a familiar perfume which had so mysteriously carried me
back to by-gone days. On another occasion, when at sea in the Indian
Ocean, after many dreary months of absence from home, I one day
accidentally found in the pocket of an old coat a paper of fine-cut
chewing tobacco. With what delight I grasped the glittering treasure
and applied it to my nose can only be conceived by a true lover of the
weed--I speak not of your voracious chewers, who masticate this
delectable narcotic as if it were food for the stomach instead of
nutriment for the soul, but of the genuine devotee, who can appreciate
the divinest essence, the rarest delicacies of tone and touch, the
most exquisite shades of sentiment in this wondrous weed. What a
luxury, after months of dreary longing--what an oasis in the desert of
life! No attar of roses could be sweeter than that paper of fine-cut.
I played with it--just titillating the nostrils--for hours before I
dared to descend to the coarse process of chewing. And then--ah
heavens! can mortal mixture ever equal that first chew again! How
bright and beautiful the world looked! What happy remembrances I
reveled in all that day, of serenades, and oyster-suppers, and pretty
girls, and a thousand other fascinations of early youth, all of which
grew out of a paper of fine-cut.
My experiences in Sweden were even more delightful in this respect
than in Russia. At Stockholm I saw drunken men every day, and at
Gottenburg it was the prevailing trait. The trouble was to see a man
who was not laboring under a pressure of bricks in his hat. On one
occasion I must have seen in the course of a single afternoon several
hundred reeling home in the highest possible condition of
ecstasy--either that, or the streets were so badly paved, and the
roads so devious and undulating, that they made people stagger to keep
straight. It was on the occasion of a fair, and may perhaps have been
an exception to the general rule. One thing is certain--it looked very
natural, and made me cotton wonderfully to these good people. There
was something really homelike in a reeling, staggering crowd--their
shouts and uproarious songs, their boozy faces and tobacco-stained
months. Every body seemed to be on a regular "bender." The only point
of difference between the Swedish and the California "bender" was in
the way the boys hugged and kissed the peasant-girls; but even in this
respect a similitude may sometimes be found in the vicinity of the
Indian Reservations, where I have seen Digger damsels treated quite as
affectionately. However, it was all right, so long as both parties
were willing. I rather liked the Gottenburg custom myself--as a
spectator, of course.
My last and perhaps most agreeable experience connected with the
pleasures of sympathy occurred in Norway, on the road from Christiania
to Trondhjem. With profound humiliation I make the confession that I
have never yet been able to eradicate a natural passion for tobacco.
Once, after reading the Rev. Dr. Cox's terrific book on the Horrors of
Tobacco, in which it was conclusively shown that a single drop of the
oil of this noxious weed put upon a cat's tongue killed the cat, I
resolved to master this vicious propensity for poison. For six months
I neither smoked, snuffed, nor chewed. But it came back somehow. Care,
I think, revived it, and every body knows that care, as well as
tobacco, killed a cat. A man might as well be killed one way as
another. We must all eat our peck of dirt, and in some shape or other
swallow our peck of poison. One learned gentleman proves that tobacco
is poison; another, that coffee and tea are equally fatal; another,
that meat is no better, and so on; our food and drink are pretty much
composed of poison, so that we are constantly killing ourselves, and
the result is, we die at last. Still, it is marvelous how long some
people survive all these deadly stimulants; how fat and hearty the
Germans are in spite of their meerschaums; how wonderfully the French
survive their strong coffee; how the Russians deluge their stomachs
with hot tea and yet still live; how the English get over their porter
and brown stout; and how long it takes the various poisons to which
the various nations of the earth are addicted to produce any sensible
diminution in the population. Sometimes I am inclined to think people
would die if they never ate a particle of any thing--either food or
poison. It seems to be one of those debts that we incur on coming into
the world, and can only discharge by going out of it.
All of which leads you gradually to the main point--my experience in
Norway. First, however, I must tell you that on my arrival in Europe,
not being able to find a plug of genuine Cavendish, I was forced to
satisfy the cravings of this morbid appetite by nibbling bad cigars.
But a new difficulty soon became manifest--there was not a spot in all
Germany where it was possible to get rid of a quid without attracting
undue attention. No man likes to be stared at as an outlaw against the
recognized decencies of life. One may smoke cigars under a lady's
nose, dress like a popinjay, or kiss his bearded friend in most
Continental cities, but he must not chew tobacco, because it is
considered a barbarous and filthy habit. He may guzzle beer, take
snuff, and wear dirty shirts, but if he would avoid reproach as an
unclean animal he must abandon his quids. Now, as a general rule, I
dislike to violate public sentiment, or inconvenience people with whom
I associate. If they are nonsensical and inconsistent in their
notions, I agree with them for the sake of harmony, if not for
politeness. Nothing pleases me better than to annoy an Englishman by
doing every thing that he most dislikes, because he makes it a point
to be disagreeable and unmannerly; carries his nationality wherever he
goes, and it does me good to furnish him with material for criticism.
Out of pure good nature, I meet him half way; chew and spit that he
may grumble, and put my legs over the back of the nearest chair to see
him enjoy a good hearty fit of disgust, and talk loud that he may find
material for ill-natured reflections on American manners--all of
which, I know, is exactly what obliges him. It affords him such
undeniable grounds for the depreciation of others, and the indulgence
of his own weak vanity!
In like manner I obliged my German friends, who, however, are
altogether different in their exactions, and only require Americans to
drop all their uncivilized habits, and become like themselves--quiet,
decent, and respectable old fogies. Therefore I obeyed the laws,
doffed my savage California costume, quit whisky, took to beer,
avoided all passages of tenderness toward the female sex, and herded
mostly with men. For a time, however, I held on to my beloved quid of
cigar. It was such a solace in the midst of all these privations!
But, alas! I had to give that up too; there was not a spot in all
Germany suitable for the purpose of expectoration! The floors of the
houses are so dreadfully clean--not a piece of carpet bigger than a
rug to sit upon; the porcelain stoves so inaccessible; the windows
always shut; every nook and corner blazing with little ornaments; the
lady of the house so severely conscious of every movement; even the
little earthen pans near the stove, filled with white sand nicely
smoothed over to represent salt-cellars--the ostensible spittoons of
the establishment--staring one in the face with a cold, steady gaze
amounting to a positive prohibition--no, the thing was impossible! I
saw plainly that a good, old-fashioned squirt of tobacco-juice would
ruin such a country as this, where every room in every house was
inimical to the habit, and every speck of ground throughout the length
and breadth of the land adapted to some useful or ornamental purpose.
Why, sir, I assure you that in the little duchy of Nassau--where it is
said the grand-duke is unable to exercise his soldiers at
target-shooting without obtaining permission to place the target in
some neighboring state--I found the garden-walks and public roads so
fearfully clean, every leaf and twig being swept up daily, and
preserved to manure the duchy, that during a pedestrian tour of three
days I was absolutely ashamed to spit any where. There was no possible
chance of doing it without expunging a soldier or a policeman, or
disfiguring the entire province. The result was, between
tobacco-juice, salt water, iron water, sulphur water, soda-water, and
all other sorts of water that came out of the earth from Brunnens of
Nassau, I got home as thin as a snake, and was forced to deny myself
even the poor consolation of a Frankfort cigar. So matters went on for
nearly a year. I became a morose and melancholy man. This will account
for all the bitter and ill-natured things I said of the Germans in
some of my sketches, every word of which I now retract.
But to come to the point of the narrative. In the due course of a
vagabond life, after visiting Russia and Sweden, I found myself one
day on the road from Lillehammer to the Dorre Fjeld in Norway. I sat
in a little cariole--an old peasant behind. The scenery was sublime.
Poetry crept over my inmost soul. The old man leaned over and said
something. Great heavens! What a combination of luxuries! His breath
smelled of whisky and tobacco. I was enchanted. I turned and gazed
fondly and affectionately in his withered old face. Two streams of
rich juice coursed down his furrowed chin. His leathery and wrinkled
mouth was besmeared with the precious fluid; his eyes rolled foolishly
in his head; he hung on to the cariole with a trembling and unsteady
hand; a delicious odor pervaded the entire man. I saw that he was a
congenial soul--cottoned to him at once--grasped him by the
hand--swore he was the first civilized human I had met in all my
travels through Europe--and called upon him, in the name of the great
American brotherhood of chewers, to pass me a bite of his tobacco.
From that moment we were the best of friends. The old man dived into
the depths of a greasy pocket, pulled out a roll of black pigtail, and
with joy beaming from every feature, saw me tear from it many a goodly
mouthful. We talked--he in Norwegian, I in a mixture of German and
English; we chewed; we spat; we laughed and joked; we forgot all the
discrepancies of age, nativity, condition, and future prospects; in
short, we were brothers, by the sublime and potent free-masonry of
tobacco. All that day my senses were entranced. I saw nothing but
familiar faces, gulches, canyons, bar-rooms, and boozy stage-drivers;
smelt nothing but whisky and tobacco in every flower by the wayside;
aspired to nothing but Congress and the suffrages of my
fellow-citizens. I was once again in my own, my beloved California.
"Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home."