Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/41

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Historical Introduction

they blinded the eyes of the people so that they might not perceive what was being accomplished.

But when the land was conquered and laid waste, and Pharaoh thought to have been received back to the throne, Gelon did, more scholastico, make perfect a juncture between his thumb and his nose, and so mocked him, bidding him journey to the City of the Waters of the Sun (which men do now call Bath), or if he liked not that, to the City of Palm Trees, which is Jericho. And so Pharaoh, being in the hieroglyphical language of Ægypt "done brown," ceased to reign, and Gelon of Syracuse reigned in his stead, and his descendants after him, even until the Gauls overran the whole world from Jerusalem to Madagascar.

And Pythagoras carefully considering all these matters, yet forgot not the multiplicity of chests of cedar-wood he bore with him, wherein was stored the precious herb. And in the dead of night he would often secretly light his pipe and smoke without hindrance, till the fumes being

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