Defoe - Robinson Crusoe (1719)

I went, directed by Heaven, no doubt; for in this chest I found a cure, both for body and soul. I opened the chest and found what I looked for, viz. the tobacco; and as the few books I had saved lay there too, I took out one of the Bibles...

What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, as to my distemper, or whether it was good for it or no; but I try'd 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 stupify'd my brain, the tobacco being green and strong, and that I had not been much used to it; then I took some and steeped it for 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 almost for 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 that time; only having opened the book casually, the first words that occur'd to me were these: Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me.