The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1883-11-28
THE FRAGRANT LEAF.
The Best and the Worst Experiences
of a Cosmopolitan.
How the People OF Many Different
Chimes Contrlve to Indulge
Ia Their Much-Loved
Nicotine.
r.smokerr In sd. James, aazette.l

c'Smoker" In st James Gazette.1
have smoked tobacco OF many out-of-the-
way kinds in many out-of, the-way places;
and, recalling them all rs well as / can tony
minds nose, the blended "reminiscences Is such
ns TO mako me think that good smoking Is
only possible in the centres Of civilization.
OF course if you are intimate, in Cuba, with
a Cuban planter, and can enjoy in his veranda
one of those green limp Havanas which never
reach the lips Of the European millionaire,
you are in possession Of a luxury that even
London Is powerlesss to bestow. But here. ]
think, is the one, and the only one, exception
to my Tule-that the best Of smoking means
the best of everything else, and that the
further you recede from good government,
good manners, good everything-except per
haps scenery and all-round sport-the further
you recede from good tobacco.
In the course of my travels up and down
the earth l have blown clouds-"the white
pigeons Of Sioux legends-with the natives
of Hindostan aud with the red Indian Of tho
far west, with the Clinaman and Mexican,
with the Kaiir and the negro, with Beer, Az
Tlkantar and creole, with Turk md Esyp,
tan, with Mormon and gentle, with Hindoo,
Mohammedan, Buddhist, and iaolater, with
black and brown, red. yellow, and even pie
bald two Malagasy boatmen at Reunion
were as checkered as circus-horses); and l
must confess that some Of tho ideas OF to-
bacco that l have encountered have been so
pathetic in their aboriginal crudity that
could have wept for my innocent brother.
But compassion is very often misplaced, and
it is a good travellers rule to reserve pearls
for those who appreciate them. Thus, a
native Of India will not smoke your tobacco,
even II he win take 1t at all, until he has
mashed 1t up with molasses and musk. Share
the contents of your pouch with a red Indian,
and tho untutored child of the prairie will
forthwith mix IL with other vegetables to
make IL go further. Tho Afrirander desplscs
what you smoke; the Chinaman calls it hay.
For tastes in tobacco differ as much as tastes
In personal beauty, and each thinks that
which he is accustomed to the best.
Il BoERs' VILE WEED.
The Beers grow and manufacture a to
bacco OF their own which Is OF such a detesta-
BILE odor TO civilized man that I remember
during the Zulu wal we used to tip tho Kafir
or Afrikander drivers of mail carts not to
smoke except during the halts at stages, and
then always to leeward. 1t was no use offer
ing them our superior article, for the dread
full Dutchmen scorned it Us trash. Equally
odious is tho ordinary tobacco OF the Chinese.
The Boer stuff smells rank and green and
acrid; but the Celestial has IA heavy. cling
ing, clogging odor that suggests opium in
the composition. The South African leaf
whom ready for consumption looks like crum-
bled hay, with miscellaneous dead garden
rubbish and tho sweepings of a conservatory
added. 1t Is full of twigs and knots and
threads of vegetable matter, and is of a gem
eral greenish-gray tint. The Chinese,
on the other hand, is curiously soft; it
lifts up In silky skeins of exquisitely fine hair
like strands, and is of a deep chicory color.
and resembles some vegetable fibre stepped
in jaggery rather than tobacco leaf. Tn.
Boer tobacco blows. out of the pipe-it Is so
dry and vagrant; but the other pads down in
the Pipe close and firm, and the bowl has to
be filed as lightly as possible in order to OBJ
tain any draft at all. Tosmoke a pipe of the
former is to scorch the tongue and to go
about all day with the taste of Turkey rhu-
barb in your mouth; to venture on the latter
Is TO enjoy a cool, highly aromatic pipe, with
the subsequent penalty of giddiness and sick
headache, as after a laundering administra-
ton Of chloroform. 1t requires only an eff
fort Of the stomach to return to Boer tobacco
n second time; TO return TO Chinese a second
time you must turn Chinaman.
H RED MANS FRAGRANT LEAF.
In singular contrast to both these Disagree
able herbs is the tobacco OF the red Indian,
which is both light and fragrant-even when
there is no tobacco in it. For the savage can
not always obtain the precious leaf, and often
when he can economy and, 1t may be taste
lead him to adulterate it with various vegota-
BILE substances Of pleasant flavor. The most
usual is the inner bark of the red willow,
which have helped Navajo Indians, in the
valley OF the Rio Virgin, TO prepare In the
following way: The young withes of the
willows are cut into lengths of about two
feet; the outer bark is removed, aud the in her
is then peeled up in long strirs, one end being
left adhering TO the ithes. These are then
stuck into the ground round a charcoal fire,
and kept there till the strips of bark, hang
ing down in a fringe, shrivel up with the
heat and curl themselves into crisp ringlets
round the uppe ends. When they seem
sufficiently dry they are crumbled up in the
hand into pieces of the size Of ordinary bran.
To this, II the shrub grows in the vicinity,
the smoked leaves Of n species OF sumach are
added, which are simply prepared by roast
ing them over the cinders and then crumbling
them. II. finally, n leaf of tobacco be
crushed up and mingled with the willow and
sumach, a smoking mixture Of an agree.
able aromatic flavor aud fragrance and OF
harmless mildness is obtained. It Is smoked,
TO correct the heat, in u long-stcmmed pipe,
ending in a capacious cylindrical bowl of
clay, which, compared with the small reed
III q az NAAAAAA Vi iiNN iLAtu III
the Celestial favors, or the villainously un
clean dhudeeno OF the Boer, is as much superior
10 both Us the mixture smoked in it is superior
TO either OF the others
THE LUNURY-LovTSd STATIC.
The Asiatic, 70 far as my observation < oes,
never smokes his tobacco pure. The simple
leaf Is too strong FOR him; and his taste for
sweets leads him to mix It with sugar, mo,
lasses or honey, und-in the case OF the lux
urious, notably the young Mohnnmedan
''swells"-to perfume and qualify the mix
ture with paste Of roses and spices. When
ready fur tho pipe It looks like crude opium.
n tenacious black amalgam, and when kin.
died gives out a faint, sickly odor, surpris-
ingly tenacious and penetrating A Hindoo
smoking his hooSah, or even the plebeian
hubble-bubble, can be smelt out from n long
distance-as the lurking servant often finds
out TO his cost
But the most surprising specimens of the
self made cigar are to DO found among the
emancipatod negroes of that earthly paradise,
the Seychelles Islands. There the tobacco
plant has run wild, and the negro will some-
times SO far bestir himself as to order his
wife to make him some cigars; and the no
suits are such distorted preposterous cat.
e~rpillars Of tobacco as might make a Regent
street tobacconist howl The material, how.
ever, Is excellent. being the best Havana
or Virginia leaf ruu wild, but without cur
ing or preparation Of any kind Is naturally
coarse and acrid. The negro, however, likes
II, and consumes his home-rolled cigars In
unstinted abundance.