esidiario' is a convict, and convicts in
Cuba are sentenced to eternal cigarette-making in lieu of oakum-picking.
The government contract with the manufacturers for this purpose,
and--voila tout!

Anxious to 'sit out' the whole cigarette performance to the very last
act, I ask and obtain permission to visit the town jail. In one of the
stone apartments of this well-regulated building are groups of convicts
dressed in white blouses and loose trousers of coarse canvas. Amongst
them are Africans, Congos, mulattoes of many shades, Chinese--Chow-chows
as they are called--and sun-burnt whites, who are principally
insubordinate Spanish soldiers and sailors. Each has a heavy chain
dangling from his waist and attached to his ankle, wears a broad-brimmed
straw hat of his own manufacture, and incessantly smokes. Before him is
a wooden box filled with picadura and small squares of tissue paper.
Great nicety is required to roll a cigarette after the approved fashion;
the strength or mildness of the tobacco being in a great measure
influenced by the way the grains are more or less compressed. A smoker
of course finds a tightly-twisted cigarette more difficult to draw than
a loosely twisted one.

The presidiario does not seem to object to his hard labour, but
doubtless prefers it to other kinds of perpetual rolling on a wheel. He
employs no sticky element to secure the edges of his cigarette, but
tucks the ends neatly in, by means of a pointed thimble which he wears
on his forefinger.

Ponder well over this, ye Havana cigarette smokers! and when next you
indulge in a whiff from your favourite luxury, remember that a
pickpocket has had his hand on your picadura!

CHAPTER XXVII.

A MULATTO GIRL.

An Obscure Birth--Bondage--A Bad Master--A Good God-Father--A Cuban
Christening--Anomaly of Slavery--A White Lover--Rivals--An
Important Event.

My contemplated departure for New York is for many days postponed by the
unexpected meeting with Don Benigno's family, who, under extraordinary
circumstances presently to be related, have recently arrived in the
Havana.

My old friends are also bound for the great American city; but at
present they are full of preparations for the approaching marriage
between Don Benigno's eldest daughter, Paquita and the young Spanish
officer, Don Manuel. The latter has lately received a military
appointment in the Cuban capital, and as he contemplates residing there
with his future