THE CHEROOT.

(_To the Editor_.)


In page 429, vol. xvi. of your amusing Miscellany, the Cheroot is called a
China Cigar. The writer, if he had given himself the trouble to inquire of
any person who had ever been in that country, would have ascertained that
there is no such thing as a Cheroot manufactured in China; and what are
called Cigars there are nothing more than a small quantity of very fine
cut yellowish tobacco, wrapped up in white paper, and about two inches or
rather more in length. These, the Chinese sometimes smoke, but generally
prefer a shallow cupped pipe of composition metal, of which copper is the
principal part; to which a long whanghee or small black bamboo is attached,
as a stem or stalk, sometimes more than a yard in length, and tipped with
an ivory tube or mouthpiece. They generally carry a piece of joss-stick or
slow-match with them, and a flint, steel, and punk; and when they are
inclined to smoke, they strike fire on apiece of punk, and light the
joss-stick, which will continue burning a long while. As their tobacco is
very fine and dry, the pipeful seldom takes more than one or two whiffs to
consume it, and they emit the smoke through their nostrils in large
volumes. In this manner they will smoke more than a dozen pipesfull in a
short time. Cigars are generally imported into China by the Americans, or
sent from Manilla; and Cheroots by the English and other trading vessels
from Bengal or from Madras.

In India, the lower orders use a hookah or hubble bubble, which is made of
a cocoa-nut shell well cleaned out, having a hole through the soft eye of
the shell, and another on the opposite side, a little lower down, the
first of which is used for the chauffoir, and the other to suck or draw