CIGARS. HISTORICAL AND GENERAL 
FACTS 
When the Spaniards landed for the first time 
on American soil they found the natives smok- 
ing the rolled-up tobacco leaves, that is a cigar. 
For a cigar is nothing more, four centuries 
having made little change in the Cuban cigar. 
The word cigar is most probably derived from 
the Spanish word cigarer—to roll. Other deri- 
vations are given, but this seems etymologically 
the correct one; and we will rest content with 
it. In Spanish America to the present day the 
custom of smoking tobacco in the rolled form, 
either as cigars or cigarettes, prevails, rather 
than the custom of smoking in pipes which was 
the method of the northern aborigines from 
whom the English colonists adopted it. Smok- 
ing was introduced into Spain in the cigar form 
and into England in the pipe fcrm. Cigars, 
however, at the present time, both in North and 
South America, form the principal item in the 
tobacco account of the people; we shall there- 
fore enter somewhat fully into matters con- 
cerning their manufacture, etc. 
Although, as stated, it is in the cigar form 
that smoking was introduced into Spain, it was 
not till about 1790 that cigars were used 
generally in Europe. A factory for the manu- 
95 
