Before every thing else, tobacco was wanting.
In consequence of his encounter with Marimonda, he ransacked the woods and meadows, seeking among all plants those which approximated nearest to the nature of the nicotiana.

As it was necessary to judge by their taste, he bit their leaves--chewed them, still in imitation of the monkey: but, to his new and profound humiliation, less skilful or less fortunate than the latter, he obtained at first no other result than a sort of poisoning: one of these plants being poisonous.
For several days he saw himself condemned to absolute repose and a spare diet.

His mouth, swollen, excoriated, refused all nourishment; his throat was burning; his body was covered with an eruption, and his languid and trembling limbs scarcely permitted him to drag himself to the stream to quench there the thirst by which he was devoured.
He believed himself about to die; and grief then imposing silence on pride, with his eyes turned towards the sea, he allowed a long-repressed sigh to escape his heart.

It was a regret for his absent country.
Very soon these alarming symptoms disappeared; his strength returned; his water-cresses and wild sorrel completed the cure.

Would he have dared to ask it of the other productions of his island?
He had become suspicious of nature; these, at least, he had long known.
Scarcely had he recovered, when the want of tobacco made itself felt anew with more force than ever.