Chapter TINCALL to TOBACCO of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

preference over every other luxury, nay even often over the necessaries of life. To a stranger no offering was so acceptable as a Whiff, and to a friend one could produce nothing half so grateful as a Chillum. So rooted was the habit that the confirmed Smoker would abstain from Food and Drink rather than relinquish the gratification he derived from inhaling the Fumes of this deleterious Plant! Nature recoils at the very idea of touching the Saliva of another Person, yet in the present instance our Tobacco smokers pass the moistened Tube from one mouth to another without hesitation on the one hand, and it is received with complacency on the other! The more acrid the Fumes so much the more grateful to the Palate of the Connoisseur. The Smoke is a Collyrium to the Eyes, whilst the Fire, they will tell you, supplies to the Body the waste of radical Heat. Without doubt the Hookah is a most pleasing Companion, whether to the Wayworn Traveller or to the solitary Hermit. It is a Friend in whose Bosom we may repose our most confidential Secrets; and a Counsellor upon whose advice we may rely in our most important Concerns. It is an elegant Ornament in our private Appartments: it gives joy to the Beholder in our public Halls. The Music of its sound puts the warbling of the Nightingale to Shame, and the Fragrance of its Perfume brings a Blush on the Cheek of the Rose. Life in short is prolonged by the Fumes inhaled at each inspiration, whilst every expiration of them is accompanied with extatic delight. … ”—(cœtera desunt).

c. 1760.—“Tambákú. It is known from the Maásir-i-Rahímí that the tobacco came from Europe to the Dakhin, and from the Dakhin to Upper India, during the reign of Akbar Sháh (1556–1605), since which time it has been in general use.”—Bahár-i’-Ajam, quoted by Blochmann, in Ind. Antiq. i. 164.

1878.—It appears from Miss Bird’s Japan that tobacco was not cultivated in that country till 1605. In 1612 and 1615 the Shogun prohibited both culture and use of tabako.—See the work, i. 276–77. [According to Mr. Chamberlain (Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 402) by 1651 the law was so far relaxed that smoking was permitted, but only out-of-doors.]

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