Note 136 — Chapter II

In this narrative is an account of tobacco twenty years before that luxury was introduced into England by Ralph Lane. The account is in these words (the grammar is defective, but the copy is accurate): “The Floridians, when they travel, have a kinde of herbe dryed, which with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, do sucke thoro the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or five days without meat or drinke, and this all the Frenchmen vsed for this purpose: yet do they holde opinion withall that it causeth water and fleame to void from their stomacks.” It is a little curious that he should thus connect tobacco with Florida, as if he had not observed its use in the West Indies. It had, indeed, been used in Southern Europe before this time.