TOBACCO IN THE EAST

The tobacco-plant does not appear to be indigenous to any part of Asia. Sir John Chardin, who was in Persia about the year 1670, relates in his travels, that tobacco had been cultivated there from time immemorial. "Honest John Bell" (of Antermony), who travelled in China about 1720, asserts that it is reported the Chinese have had the use of tobacco for many ages. Rumphius, who resided at Amboyna towards the end of the seventeenth century, found it universal over the East Indies, even in countries where Spaniards or Portuguese had never been. The evidence furnished by these authors, although m…