110 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

 

I was struck with these reflections, as one astonished, and had not a
word to say,—no, not to answer to myself; but rose up pensive and
sad, walked back to my retreat, and went up over my wall, as if I had
been going to bed; but my thoughts were sadly disturbed, and I had
no inclination to sleep, so I sat down in my chair, and lighted my
lamp, for it began to be dark. Now, as the apprehensions of the
return of my distemper terrified me very much, it occurred to my
thought, that the Brazilians take no physic but their tobacco for almost
all distempers; and I had a piece of -a roll of tobacco in one of the
chests, which was quite cured, and some also that was green, and not
quite cured.

I went, directed by Heaven, no doubt; for in this chest I found a
cure both for soul and body. JI opened the chest, and found what I
looked for, namely, the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay
there too, I took out one of the Bibles, which I mentioned before, and
which, to this time, I had not found leisure, or so much as inclination,
to look into,—I say, I took it out, and brought both that and the
tobacco with me to the table.

What use to make of the tobacco } knew not, as to my distemper,
or whether it was good for it or no; but I tried several experiments
with it, as if I was resolved it should hit one way or other. I first
took a piece of a leaf, and chewed it in my mouth, which indeed at first
almost stupified my brain, the tobacco being green and strong, and I
had not been much used to it; then I took some, and steeped it an
hour or two in some rum, and resolved to take a dose of it, when I lay
down; and lastly, I burnt some upon a pan of coals, and held my nose
close over the smoke of it, as long as I could bear it, as well for the
heat, as the virtue of it, and I held almost to suffocation.

In the interval of this operation, I took up the Bible, and began to
read; but my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to bear
reading, at least at that time; only, having opened the book casu-
ally, the first words that occurred to me were these: “Call on me in
the day of trouble, and I will deliver ; and thou shalt glorify me.”

The words were very apt to my case, and made some impression
upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so much as
they did afterwards; for, as for being delivered, the word had no
sound, as I may say, tome. The thing was so remote, so impossible,
in my apprehension of things, that I began to say, as the children of
Israel did, when they were promised flesh to eat, “Can God spread a
table in the wilderness?” So I began to say, “Can God himself de-
liver me from this place?” And as it was not for many years that
any hope appeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts. But,