Page:Life And Letters Of Thomas Jefferson -- Hirst (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.89541).pdf/29

Rh the pipe, of which they possessed many varieties. Some had bowls of clay, others of stone with long and curiously carved stems. The luxurious Aztecs not only smoked pipes and cigars but took snuff.

The first mention of tobacco and of smoking in European history is a note in the diary of Columbus for the year 1492. Soon afterwards the Spaniards brought the fragrant weed to Europe. By the end of the sixteenth century Englishmen had contracted the habit, and from a habit smoking soon became a mania. At first the government adopted repressive measures, but desisted on discovering that an easy and growing revenue could be derived from the customs duties on tobacco.

The first Virginian settlers found that the plant, which had been brought from the South, was being grown by the Indians in patches near their wigwams. To the red man smoking was more than a pleasure; it was often a duty and sometimes a rite. The pipe was a symbol of charity and good will. The best of pipes, the calumet, was the pipe of peace. Captain John Smith, on his first visit to the Rappahannocks, was met by four chiefs carrying a bow with arrows and a pipe, signifying that he might take his choice between war and peace. John Rolfe, one of Smith's companions and husband of Pocahontas, started a tobacco patch of his own in 1612. The example spread; for the soil and climate were favourable, and a hogshead of tobacco soon proved to be the most valuable of exports. In a few years the Plantation was a Plantation of tobacco planters. The settlers quickly improved on Indian methods, and Virginian tobacco became renowned.

King James the First, who had been induced by hope of a gold mine—in which he would have a share—to