Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-11
THE FRAGRANT LEAF.
The Best and the Worst Experiences
of a Cosmopolitan.
How the People of Many Different
Chimes Contriye to Indulge
i'll Their Muci-E4oved
Nicotine.
r"smokern in ST. James, Gazette.1

It' GI4OhOb OOctNOO VI 1AhlLS OSlU VI tilO-
way kinds in many out-of the-way places;
and, recalling them all as well as I can tony
minds nose, the blended Renaissance is such
as to make me think hat good smoking is
only possible in the centres of civilization.
Of course if you are intimate, in Cuba, with
a Cuban planter, and can en- 10y in his veranda
one of those green limp Havana 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, L
think, is the one, and the only one, exception
to my rule-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 have blown clouds-"the white
pigeons" Of Sioux legends-with the natives
OF Hindostan and with the red Indian of the
far west, with the Chinaman and Mexican,
with the Kaffir and the negro, with Boer, At
rikander and creole, with Turk and Egyp-
tan, with Mormon and gentle, with Hindoo,
Mohammedan, Buddhist, and idolater, 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 the ideas of to-
bacco that I 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, q.
native of India will not smoke your tobacco,
even if he will take it at all, until he has
mashed it up with molasses and musk. Share
the contents of your pouch with a red Indian,
and the Intutored child of the prairie will
forthwith mix it with other vegetables to
make it go further. The A~frikander despises
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.
THE Beers VILE WEED.
The Beers grow and manufacture a to
bacco Of their own which is of such a detesta-
bic odor to civilized man that I remember
during the Zulu war we used to tip the Kafir
or Afrikander drivers of mail carts not to
smoke except during the halts at stages, and
then always to leeWard. It was no use offer
ing them our superior article, for the dread
full Dutchmen scorned it as trash. Equally
odious is the ordinary tobacco Of the Chinese.
The Boer stuff smells rank and green and
acrid; but the Celestial has d heavy, cling
ing, clogging odor that suggests opium in
the composition. TIL South African leaf
when ready for consumption looks ike crum-
bed hay, with miscellaneous dead garden
rubbish and the 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
lik strands, and is of a deep chicory color,
and resembles some vegetable fibre STEPPED
in jaggery rather than tobacco leaf. The
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
a second time; to return to Chinese a second
time you must turn Chinaman.
THE E 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, it may be taste
lead him to adulterate it with various vegeta-
BILE substances of pleasant flavor. The most
. usual is the inner bark of the red willow,
which 1 nave helped Navajo Indians, in the
valley of the Rio Virgin, to prepare in the
following way: The young withes of the
willows are cut int~lelgths of about two
feet; the outer bark is removed, and the inleI
is then peeled VI il long strirs, one end being
left adhering to the withes. These are than
stuck into the ground round a charcoal fire,
and kept there till the strips of bark, hang
ing down i'll a fringe, shrivel up with tn;
heat and curl themselves into crisp ringlets
round the upper ends. When they seem
sufficiently dry they are crumbled up in the
hand into pieces of the size of ordinary bran
To this, if the shrub grows in the vicinity
the smoked leaves Of a species Of sumach arr
added, which are simply prepared by roast
ing them over the cinders and then crumblin:
them. If, finally, a leaf of tobacco bC
crushed up and mingled with the willow an(
sumach, a smoking mixture of an agree
able aromatic flavor and fragrance and o.
harmless mildness is obtained. It is smoked,
to correct the heat, in a long-stemmed pipe
ending in a capacious cylindrical bowl O
clay, which, compared with the small reed
stemmed opiun-pipe Kind of instrument whicI
the Celestial favors, or the v~illainously IN
clean dhudeen of the Boer, is as much superio
to both as the mixture smoked in it is superio
to either of the others.
THE LUXURY-LOvING ASIATIC.
The Asiatic, 50 far as my observation g oes
never smokes his tobacco pure. The simple
leaf is too strong for him; and his taste fol
sweets leads him to mix it with sugar, me
lasses or honey, and-in the case of the lux
urious, notably the young Mohammeda,
"swells"-to perfume and qualify the mix
ture with paste of roses and spices. Whe
ready for the pipe it looks like crude opium
a tenacious black amalgam, and when XII
died gives out a faint, sickly odor, surpris
ingly tenacious and penetrating. A Hindo,
smoking his hookah, or even the plebeia
hubble bubble, can be slnelt out from a lon
distance-as the lurking servant often find
out to his cost.
But the most surprising specimens of til
self-made cigar are to be found among til
emancipated negroes of that earthly paradist
the Seychelles islands. There the tobacco
plant has run wild, ard tie negro viii somt
shines so far bestir himself as to order b
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