gerous roads, up and down steep and slip- 

 pery mountainsides, across bridgeless 

 streams, through dense and tangled for- 

 ests, the transportation of tobacco through 

 the Vuelta is one involving daring and 

 pluck, which native familiarity and mule 

 peculiarity treat as a matter of routine 

 and duty. 



This in brief is the story of the Vuelta. 

 While tobacco from other provinces of the 

 island finds a ready market in every civi- 

 lized land, the " smoke divine " comes 

 from the Vuelta leaf alone. If imitation 

 is the sincerest form of flattery, no other 

 plant has ever received such unlimited 

 and costly praise. Merchants, planters, 

 moneyed corporations, and even govern- 

 ments have tried, time and again, to grow 

 the Vuelta leaf in other lands and climes. 

 The seeds of Pinar del Rio have been sown 

 in the Philippines, Sumatra, in India and 

 Turkey, in Russia and Germany, in Al- 



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