thing. I, who from
infancy upwards have cherished this fiction, am lamentably disappointed
when I discover what exorbitant prices are demanded for the best brands.
The cedar boxes, with their precious contents, set like gems in the
midst of tinfoil and fancy-cut paper, look inviting; but I seek in vain
for a cigar at the ridiculously cheap rate I have prepared myself to
pay. I try Brevas, and ask for a penn'orth of the best, but am horrified
when I am told that a single specimen of that brand costs five-pence!
The Intimidads alarm me; the Bravas unman me; and as for the Cabanas,
the Partagas, the Henry Clays, and the Upmanns, I am filled with awe at
the bare mention of their value per pound. A real Ramas, I am informed,
is worth eighteen-pence English, while superior Upmanns are not to be
had under ten sovereigns a hundred. In despair of finding anything
within my means at the Louvre counter, I purchase a 'medio's' worth of
cigarettes--a medio, or two-pence half-penny being the smallest coin
current in Cuba--order a cup of cafe noir, and sally forth in quest of
cheaper smokeables.

Crossing the square where the Tacon theatre and circus stand, I wander
through the narrow, ill-paved streets of the Cuban capital. At the
corner of every hotel, under archways and arcades, I meet with tables
laid out like fruit-stalls, bearing bundles of cigars and cigarettes.
Here, at least, I expect to find something to smoke at a fabulously low
rate. Yes; here are cigars at two, three, and five for a silver
two-pence; but those I invest in do not satisfy me; they are damp, new,
badly rolled, won't draw, and have all kinds of odd shapes. Some are
curved like Turkish scimetars, others are square and flat, as if they
had been mangled or sat upon, while a few are undecided in form like
horse-radish. The vendor assures me that all his cigars are born of
'tabaco legitimo,' of 'calidad superior,' grown on the low sandy soil of
the famous Vuelta Abajo district; but I know what a very small area that
tract of land comprises, and I will no more believe in the abundance of
its resources than I will in those of Champagne and Oporto.

In my peregrinations, I gaze fondly into the interior of wholesale cigar
warehouses, but dare not enter and demand the price of half of one of
those countless cedar-boxes, which I see piled up to the very ceiling in
walls fifty boxes thick. At last I founder on the Plaza de Santa Isabel,
a spacious square, laid out with