In the following year the Huguenot Admiral Coligny, foreseeing the troubles about to fall upon the Protestants in France, despatched to Brazil an expedition, largely financed by the King, to seek a refuge for the persecuted Reformers. The venture was under the charge of Nicholas Durand, better known by his assumed name of Villegagnon, a knight of the Maltese order, who had served in the expedition of Charles V against Algiers, and had distinguished himself as an author and amateur theologian. Thevet accompanied the party as a volunteer when Villegagnon set sail with two ships in May 1555. A landing was effected on an island near the mouth of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, and close to the Tropic of Capricorn, on a spot that still commemorates the attempt by its name of Ilha de Villagalhão. The country around was called by the leader of the colonists Antarctic France.' The expedition itself may be regarded as the prototype of all those that have since gone to the New World to seek a place where men might worship God as seemed best to them. Unfortunately the attempt to found a colony was a complete failure, in great part owing to the peculiarities of Villegagnon's theological views. The immigrants, Thevet among them, had therefore to find their way back to Europe in trading vessels.

Returning to France in 1556, Thevet brought with him the tobacco plant, and began to write his charming 'Singularitez de la France Antarctique.' This remarkable book is illustrated by woodcuts which, according to M. Gaffarel, are the work of the artist Jean Cousin (1500-90). On examination of the figures, however, it becomes obvious that at least two hands were involved in the illustration of this work. Some of the drawings are artistically beneath contempt, and resemble the lifeless woodcuts that frequently disfigure works of the period. Others, on the other hand, may be more safely regarded as the work of Cousin. These are spirited in draughtsmanship, and display the anatomical knowledge that might be expected from so distinguished an artist, who was also a countryman and contemporary of Sylvius, Charles Étienne and Vesalius. This group of drawings is moderately exemplified by our fig. 2.

The picture here reproduced is supposed to represent a sufferer from the 'morbus gallicus,' who is being

*

treated by his companions. To the line of treatment itself we have already drawn attention in another communication, and in the reference to the subject quoted above from Oviedo. For the present we will focus the reader's attention to the single figure which stands to the right and behind the central figure of the patient. On close scrutiny it will be seen that this man has his two hands occupied with the sufferer, but from his mouth issues a conical structure, marked with spiral lines, and terminating in a cloud of smoke. Although there is no direct statement to that effect, we consider that he is smoking a cigar, or rather the prototype of a cigar, by way of medical treatment. The figure is thus the earliest known pictorial representation of smoking. Suspended behind the group may be seen the 'hamaca' or tobacco bed to which we have already referred.

Thevet devotes to the consideration of tobacco the greater part of two chapters, an earlier one describing the use of the herb in Brazil, and a later one telling of the habit among the Canadian Indians. In order to preserve some of the quaintness of the original, we quote these passages from the anonymous English translation of 1568, entitled 'The new found worlde or Antarctike.'t A few corrections and additions which we have made from the original French we indicate by square brackets.

'There is another secrete herbe which they Petun an herb and howe it name in their language Petun, the which most is used. commonly they beare about them, for that they esteem it marvellous profitable for many things, this herbe is like our Buglos. They gather this herbe very charely [Fr., soigneusement], and dry it [in the shade] within their little cabanes or houses. Their maner to use it, is this, they wrappe a quantitie of this herb being dry in a leafe of a

* Annals of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene,' vol. vi, p. 379, 1912.

The New found worlde, or Antarctike, wherin is contained wonderful and strange things, as well of humaine creatures, as Beastes, Fishes, Foules and Serpents, Trees, Plants, Pines of Gold and Silver: garnished with many learned aucthorities, travailed and written in the French tong, by that excellent learned man, master Andrewe Thevet. And now translated into Englishe, wherein is reformed the errours of the auncient Cosmographers.' London, 1568, Anonymous (? Edward Place). For an account of this work, see the present author in 'Annals of Tropical Medic ine and Hygiene,' vol. vi, p. 96 ff, 1912.

Palme tree which is very great, and so they make rolles of the length of a candle, and than they fire the one end, and receive the smoke thereof by the nose and by their mouthe. They say it is very holesome to clense [Fr., faire distiller] and consume the superfluous humors of the brain. Moreover being taken after this sort, it kepeth the parties from hunger and thirst for a time. Therefore they use it ordinarily. . .

'When they have any secret talke or counsel among themselves they draw this smoke and then they speake. The which they do costomably one after another in the [Councils of] Warre [for which purpose it is most useful]. The women use it by no means. [It is a fact that] if that they take too much of this perfume, it will make them light in the head as [do the vapours] of strong wine. The Christians that do now inhabite there, are become very desirous of this [herb and] parfume, although that the first use thereof is not without danger, before that one is accustomed thereto, for this smoke causeth sweates and weakenesse, even to fall into a Syncope, the which I have tried in my selfe. And it is not so straunge as it seemeth, for there are many other fruits that offende the braine, though that the tast of them is plesant and good to eat' (chap. xxxii, p. 49A).

The drying in the shade within their little cabanes or houses' refers to the process of curing' and ' fermentation' through which the tobacco leaf has to pass in the course of its manufacture. After the tobacco is dried either in the sun or in a dry room or by a very slow fire, it is piled up within a barn into a solid stack and there left for several weeks, being turned over from time to time. The 'fermentation' thus induced is probably not a bacterial process, but is due to the presence of an enzyme in the leaves.

The second passage in the 'Singularitez' referring to the use of tobacco is perhaps partly taken from Cartier and concerns the method of smoking adopted in Canada.

'Furthermore there is a little sede, small like A kinde of to Mariolaine † seede, which bringeth forth an herbe somwhat great.

herbe.

This herbe is marvellously esteemed: also they drie it in the sunne, after

* The earliest book known to us containing a satisfactory description of these processes is the Tabacologia' of Johannes Neander, Leyden, 1626. In this work there are also good figures of the preparation of the leaf.

Probably Marjoram, the fruit of which splits into four seeds, which somewhat resemble the numerous little seeds of the tobacco plant.

that they have gathered a greate quantitye, and customably they hang it about their neck, being wrapped in [little pouches of the skin of some animal. They have a kind of hollow trumpet, into one end of which they put some of the herbs thus]* dried, which after that they have rubbed it a little betweene their hands, they put it to the fire and so receive the smoke by the other end of the horn into their mouths, and they take thereof in such quantitye that it cometh forth both at the nose and at the eyes. And after that sorte they parfume them all houres in the daye. The people of America [i.e. of Brazil] doe parfume them after an other manner, as we have before showed' (chap. lxxvii, p. 126a).

The use of this herbe

in parfume.

These passages quoted from Thevet are the earliest references in the English language to tobacco, unless, perchance, we may interpret in this sense a solitary phrase in Richard Eden's volume of 1555 entitled, 'The decades of the newe worlde or west India.' The phrase occurs in decade III, book 8, where in the course of a description of the wonders of the West Indies it is said, 'There is also a herbe whose smoke is deadly poison.'†

In the year 1561, three years after the publication of theSingularitez,' Jean Nicot (1530-1600), Sieur de Villemain and French Ambassador to Sebastian, King of Portugal, reintroduced the tobacco plant to his native country. The herb has since been known as Nicotiana. On his way to Portugal Nicot appears to have met at Bordeaux a Flemish merchant who gave him some seeds of the tobacco plant. On his return to France Nicot gave some of these seeds to Catherine de Medici and to the grand prieur. Hence the plant became known as the 'herbe du grand prieur' or the 'herbe de la reine ou Medicée.' Cardinal de Sainte Croix, papal nuncio to Portugal, and Nicolo Tornaboni, nuncio to France, first introduced tobacco into Italy with a view to its use as a remedy for the 'morbus gallicus.' They therefore called it the herbe sainte,' and by this or some similar title it was long known in Western Europe. Our Thevet claimed

The errors here corrected provide internal evidence that the translator had never seen tobacco used.

This part of Eden's work is translated from Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's 'De Orbe Novo Decades,' of which parts were printed in 1511, 1516 and 1530 respectively. The original passage runs, Est et herba quae, uti de ligno alias memoravimus, suffumigio perimit.'

(and his own works uphold him) that he preceded Nicot by some years, and that in 1556 he brought back with him from America the seeds of the shrubs which he planted in France and named the 'herb of Angoulême' from the place of his birth.

After the publication of the 'Singularitez,' Thevet became almoner' to Queen Catherine de Medici and later Royal historiographer, cosmographer and 'garde des curiosités.' He remained also in favour with her husband, Henri II, and with his successors, from whom he continued to hold offices of sinecure. Finally Charles IX gave him the 'commande de l'abbaye de Masdion,' in Saintonge, a post which he retained until his death in 1592. In 1575 Thevet produced the two interesting volumes of his 'Cosmographie Universelle.' Here in his description of America he again refers to his herb Petun, and gives a picture (fig. 4) of Indians smoking cigars of alarming magnitude, but of structure similar to that already illustrated. He now, however, weakens on the medicinal properties of the herb.

Petun a herb named after the author, Angoulême.

'I make the claim' (he says) that I am the first who has brought the seed of this shrub [tobacco] to France and planted it there and called it the herb of Angoulême. Since then a certain man who has never been in the country [i.e. America] has chosen, some years after my return, to give it his own name. I am not so foolish as to try to make out as some have done that the savages use the leaves of Petun as a remedy in their diseases, and especially wounds and ulcers. For these leaves have no virtue or efficacy whatever except those which I have enumerated. I am, moreover, taken aback by others who would tell of two sorts of Petun, and who distinguish male and female plants.

'Some say that by distilling my herb of Angoulême in an alembic they can extract a fluid therefrom, and this I well believe, for it is a property of all plants, but the claim that an oily extract can be thus obtained is absurd, nor can all the empirics, alchemists, extractors of the fifth essence or antimonialists persuade me of it. There is a certain Italian, moreover, who has written very oddly of this herb and who tells the most stupid lies imaginable about it, thereby proving that he has never been in the country where it is found. He assures the reader that the vapour of dried Petun is used in Florida (whence it is exported, forsooth!) and is