rior skill. Piles of loose cigarettes and gummed labels are before
him. Into the former he digs his dexterous fingers, and he knows by the
feel alone whether he has the prescribed twenty-six within his grasp. By
a peculiar shake he humours the handful into its tubular form, and with
another movement wraps it lightly in a paper cover, which he leaves open
at one end and neatly tucks in at the other. He is so rapid in his work,
that we can scarcely follow him with our eyes, and the whole
performance, from beginning to end, looks to us like a conjuring trick.
Our guide tells us how many thousands of packets per day are in this way
completed by these useful coolies.

'Arriba!' Another flight leads to the 'picadura' department, where
tobacco leaves are prepared for cigarette making. The aspect on all
sides reminds us of a room in a Manchester factory. We wade carefully
through a maze of busy machinery. There are huge contrivances for
pressing tobacco into solid cakes hard as brickbats; ingenious apparatus
for chopping these cakes into various sized grains of 'picadura' or
tobacco cuttings; horizontal and vertical tramways for forwarding the
latter to their respective compartments. Near us is a winnowing chamber
for separating particles of dust from the newly cut picadura. We enter
by a spring door which closes after us with a bang, and everybody is
immediately seized with a violent fit of sneezing. Particles of escaping
tobacco dust float in the air and tickle our olfactories. We are
actually standing within a huge snuff-box! After inhaling a wholesale
pinch of this powder, which leaves us sneezing for the next quarter of
an hour, we clamber to the heights of the establishment, and find
ourselves in the printing and paper cutting departments. Here artists
are engaged in preparing lithographic stones and wood blocks with
various picturesque designs for cigarette labels. Gilders are
illuminating labels, and cutters are shaping paper into their cigarette
and label sizes. Further on are printing offices, where all the
letterpress and lithography required in the establishment is
accomplished. This is far from an insignificant item in the manufactory,
for, besides the pictorial and letterpress covers, there are the
Honradez advertisements to print; circulars, pamphlets, together with
dedicatory dance music, and an occasional local newspaper. We linger
lovingly about this interesting department, and, before we leave, the
foreman of