290 



httmboldt's cuba. 



the contraband trade in tobacco and segars in Cuba 

 is very great indeed. 



During the last twenty years, the prices of segars 

 at Havana have very nearly doubled, and those for 

 leaf tobacco have largely increased. We think 

 Baron Humboldt was misinformed relative to the 

 importation of segars in Cuba, from the United 

 States, for the use of the common people. Some 

 small parcels of manufactured chewing tobacco are 

 imported for sale, and formerly Kentucky tobacco 

 could always be purchased in bond for the African 

 slave-trade ; but in our long residence in Cuba, we 

 have never know T n segars to be imported there from 

 the United States. The Vuelta de Abajo owes its 

 fine and universally esteemed quality of tobacco, 

 probably, as much to the physical formation of the 

 country, as to any peculiar quality of its soil. Along 

 the northern border of the district, where the best 

 tobacco is grown, lies the high Sierra de los Organos, 

 gathering, in rains upon its northern slopes, the 

 moisture borne landward by the constantly prevail- 

 ing trade winds; and this, with the effect of the 

 surrounding heated waters of the Caribbean sea, and 

 the Gulf of Mexico, give to the region south of this 

 ridge a character of climate peculiarly its own.] 



After speaking of sugar, coffee, and tobacco, the 



