CHAPTER X 



CIGARS 



Cigar or pipe first mode of smoking ? — Origin of word ' cigar ' — 

 Why Spaniards smoked cigars and English pipes — Primitive 

 cigar — Introduction of cigars in Nortehrn Europe — Cuba 

 home of cigars — Growth of leaf— Veguero's trials — Gathering 

 and packing — Classes of leaf — Curing and manufacture — 

 Stripped — The Torcedor's magic — Where Havanas go — 

 The gems of cigardom — Cuban's knowledge of leaf and 

 tests — Light specks on cigars — The marks of a cigar box — 

 American cigars — Mexican, Manila, Indian and European 

 cigars — The Italian concoction — British-made cigars — Price 

 of cigars — Rarely adulterated — How to choose a cigar — 

 Light V. dark cigars — Proper colour of a cigar — Output of 

 Cubas — The world's cigars. 



Whether the cigar or the pipe was the original 

 form of drinking tobacco is a somewhat vexed 

 question. The first smokers seen by Columbus 

 were puffing rolls of tobacco ; it was only on the 

 mainland of North America among the Red Indians 

 that the pipe was in general use. In the off-lying 

 islands and in Southern America the leaves were 

 rolled up and smoked direct. Taking into considera- 

 tion the ceremonial use of tobacco as incense, it 

 seems clear that the pipe was the original mode 

 of inhahng the smoke, and that the cigar was the 



