h tobacco in the manufactured state. Coffee does
not figure to any extent in the statistics of exports. Exorbitant
taxation and the cruel ravages of civil war, in the coffee districts
especially, are largely the cause of the loss of an important and
profitable industry.

Some amusing experiments with a mimosa or sensitive plant served to
fill a leisure hour at Buena Esperanza, under our host's intelligent
direction. It grew wild and luxuriantly within a few feet of the broad
piazza of the country-house. Close by it was a morning-glory, which
was in remarkable fullness and freshness of bloom, its gay profuseness
of purple, pink, and variegated white making it indeed the glory of
the morning. It was a surprise to find the mimosa of such similar
habits with its neighbor, the morning-glory, regularly folding its
leaves and going to sleep when the shades of evening deepened, but
awaking bright and early with the first breath of the morn. So
sensitive is this most curious plant, so full of nerves, as our host
expressed it, that it would not only shrink instantly, like unveiled
modesty, at the touch of one's hand, but even at the near approach of
some special organisms, ere they had extended a hand towards it. Five
persons tried the experiment before the sixth illustrated the fact
that touch was not absolutely necessary to cause the leaves to shrivel
up or shrink through seeming fear. Our host even intimated that when
the mimosa had become familiar with a congenial person its timidity
would vanish, and it could be handled gently by that individual
without outraging its sensibility. Of this, however, we saw no
positive evidence. If Mr. Darwin had supplemented his chapters on the
monkey by a paper relating to the mimosa, he might possibly have
enabled us to find a mutual confirmation in them of some fine-spun
theory.

The three great staple productions of Cuba are sugar, the sweetener;
coffee, the tonic; and tobacco, the narcotic of half the world. The
first of these, as we have shown, is the greatest source of wealth,
having also the preference as to purity and excellence over any other
saccharine production. Its manufacture also yields molasses, which
forms an important article of export, besides which a spirituous
liquor, called aguardiente, is distilled in considerable quantities
from the molasses. The cane, which grows to about the size of a large
walking-stick, or well-developed cornstalk, is cut off near the ground
and