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Show FIRST KNOWN USE OF CIGARS Mentioned by Name In Book Publifhed in 1740, but Were Smoked Bo--fore That Time. The ' earliest known mention of cignrs Is In a book published In 1740 under the title of "Distresses and Adventures of John Cockburn." It appears ap-pears that Cockburn was enst on a desert des-ert Island In the Bay of Honduras, from which he swam to the mainland, and thence traveled afoot to Porto Bello, a distance of 2,000 miles. Here he met some friars who gave him some "seegars" to smoke. "These," he says, "are some leaves of tobacco rolled up In some manner that serves both as pipe and the tobacco Itself." Though this Is the earliest date at which cigars appear to be mentioned by that name, so far back as 1498 two soldiers sent by Columbus to explore ex-plore Cuba told their companions on their return how the natives iarried in their mouths a lighted firebrand made from the leaves of a certain herb, rolled up In maize leaves. The description of an Indian method of smoking given by Lionel Wafer, in his "Travels In the Isthmus of Darien," In 1699, shows that they then smoked cigars made just as we make them now. The manufacture and consumption of cigars In northeru Europe only dates from the close of the seventeenth century. |