Dr. Bigelow (_American Botany_, 4to., vol. ii. p. 171.) tells us that
_Nicot. fructicosa_ is said to have been cultivated in the East prior to
the discovery of America. Linnæus sets down the same as a native of
China and the Cape of Good Hope. Sir G. Staunton says that there is no
traditional account of the introduction of tobacco into China; nor is
there any account of its introduction into India[2]; though, according
to Barrow, the time when the cotton plant was introduced into the
southern provinces of China is noted in their annals. Bell of Antermony,
who was in China in 1721, says,

"It is reported the Chinese have had the use of tobacco for many
ages," &c.--_Travels_, vol. ii. p. 73., Lond. ed. 4to. 1763.

Ledyard says, the Tartars have smoked from remote antiquity (_Travels_,
326.). Du Halde speaks of tobacco as one of the natural productions of
Formosa, whence it was largely imported by the Chinese (p. 173. Lond.
ed. 8vo. 1741).

The prevalence of the practice of smoking at an early period among the
Chinese is appealed to by Pallas as one evidence that in Asia, and
especially in China, the use of tobacco for smoking is more ancient than
the discovery of the New World. (See _Asiat. Journ_., vol. xxii. p.
137.)

The Koreans say they received tobacco from Japan, as also instructions
for its cultivation, about the latter end of the sixteenth century.
(Authority, I think, Hamel's _Travels, Pink. Coll._, vii. 532.) Loureiro
states that in Cochin China tobacco is indigenous, and has its proper
vernacular name.