Chapter TINCALL to TOBACCO of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

some with me, and prepared a handsome pipe of jewel work.…His Majesty (Akbar) was enjoying himself after receiving my presents, and asking me how I had collected so many strange things in so short a time, when his eye fell upon the tray with the pipe and its appurtenances: he expressed great surprise and examined the tobacco, which was made up in pipefuls; he inquired what it was, and where I had got it. The Nawab Kháni-’Azam replied: ‘This is tobacco, which is well known in Mecca and Medina, and this doctor has brought it as a medicine for your Majesty.’ His Majesty looked at it, and ordered me to prepare and take him a pipeful. He began to smoke it, when his physician approached and forbade his doing so”…(omitting much that is curious). “As I had brought a large supply of tobacco and pipes, I sent some to several of the nobles, while others sent to ask for some; indeed all, without exception, wanted some, and the practice was introduced. After that the merchants began to sell it, so the custom of smoking spread rapidly.”—Asad Beg, in Elliot, vi. 165–167.

1610.—“The Turkes are also incredible takers of Opium…carrying it about with them both in peace and in warre; which they say expelleth all feare, and makes them couragious; but I rather think giddy headed.…And perhaps for the self same cause they also delight in Tobacco; they take it through reeds that have ioyned vnto them great heads of wood to containe it: I doubt not but lately taught them, as brought them by the English: and were it not sometimes lookt into (for Morat Bassa not long since commanded a pipe to be thrust through the nose of a Turke, and so to be led in derision through the Citie,) no question but it would prove a principall commodity. Neverthelesse they will take it in corners, and are so ignorant therein, that that which in England is not saleable, doth passe here amongst them for most excellent.”—Sandys, Journey, 66.

1615.—“Il tabacco ancora usano qui” (at Constantinople) “di pigliar in conversazione per gusto: ma io non ho voluto mai provarne, e ne avera cognizione in Italia che molti ne pigliano, ed in particolare il signore cardinale Crescenzio qualche volta per medicamento insegnatogli dal Signor don Virginio Orsino, che primo di tutti, se io non fallo, gli anni addietro lo portò in Roma d’Inghilterra.”—P. della Valle, i. 76.

1616.—“Such is the miraculous omnipotence of our strong tasted Tobacco, as it cures al sorts of diseases (which neuer any drugge could do before) in all persons and at all times.…It cures the gout in the feet and (which is miraculous) in that very

instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies vp into the head, the virtue thereof, as heauy, runs down to the litle toe. It helps all sorts of agues. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they goe to bed, it makes one sleepe soundly, and yet being taken when a man is sleepie and drousie, it will, as they say, awake his braine, and quicken his vnderstanding. … O omnipotent power of Tobacco! And if it could by the smoake thereof chase out deuils, as the smoake of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smell no stronglier) it would serve for a precious Relicke, both for the Superstitious Priests, and the insolent Puritanes, to cast out deuils withall.”—K. James I., Counter- blaste to Tobacco, in Works, pp. 219–220.

1617.—“As the smoking of tobacco (tambákú) had taken very bad effect upon the health and mind of many persons, I ordered that no one should practise the habit. My brother Sháh ’Abbás, also being aware of its evil effects, had issued a command against the use of it in Irán. But Khán-i-’Alam was so much addicted to smoking, that he could not abstain from it, and often smoked.”—Memoirs of Jahángír, in Elliot, v. 851. See the same passage rendered by Blochmann, in Ind. Antiq. i. 164.

1623.—“Incipit nostro seculo in immensum crescere usus tobacco, atque afficit homines occulta quidem delectatione, ut qui illi semel assueti sint, difficile postea abstinent.”—Bacon, H. Vitae et Mortis, in B. Montague’s ed. x. 189.

We are unable to give the date or Persian author of the following extract (though clearly of the 17th century), which with an introductory sentence we have found in a fragmentary note in the handwriting of the late Major William Yule, written in India about the beginning of last century:¹

“Although Tobacco be the produce of an European Plant, it has nevertheless been in use by our Physicians medicinally for some time past. Nay, some creditable People even have been friendly to the use of it, though from its having been brought sparingly in the first instance from Europe, its rarity prevented it from coming into general use. The Culture of this Plant, however, became speedily almost universal, within a short period after its introduction into Hindostaun; and the produce of it rewarded the Cultivator far beyond every other article of Husbandry. This became more especially the case in the reign of Shah Jehaun (commenced A.H. 1037) when the Practice of Smoking pervaded all Ranks and Classes within the Empire. Nobles and Beggars, Pious and Wicked, Devotees and Free-thinkers, poets, historians, rhetoricians, doctors and patients, high and low, rich and poor, all! all seemed intoxicated with a decided