MANILLA. 
239 
entered the city of Manilla on a visit to the governor ; and having 
passed through some long gloomy streets with houses of one story, 
lighted by oyster-shell windows, reached the palace. We were 
received in a large unfurnished room with unaffected politeness 
and a cordial welcome by Don Mariano Fernandes Folgarez the 
Governor, who proffered us every kind of civility for the time we 
should remain at Manilla, and invited all the members of the 
Embassy to dine with him next day. On leaving the city, which 
appeared strongly fortified, the Embassy passed over a draw-bridge 
into the suburbs, impatient to see the inhabitants, of whom they 
had caught but an imperfect glimpse the night before. The 
mulatto women lost something of their attractions when seen in 
open day, not from their appearing less comely, but from their car- 
rying in their mouths immense cigars. Many of these were seven 
or eight inches long, and an inch and a half in diameter; of such 
magnitude, indeed, that the mouth seemed scarce large enough to 
grasp them. When they were fully light, and pouring fourth vo- 
lumes of smoke, they might have been taken for chimnies to ma- 
chines rendered locomotive by the powers of steam. 
The manufacture of cigars affords employment to a great number 
of native women, and exhibits to the stranger an interesting ex- 
ample of local customs. It is carried on in a spacious gallery of a 
square form. Upwards of two thousand females of all ages are 
seated at low tables at which they make cigars by rolling the leaves 
of the tobacco plant on each other. The most scrupulous pre- 
caution is taken to prevent their smuggling it in any form. Super- 
intendants walk round the tables and collect the cigars as they are 
made, and examine the persons of the workers at the close of 
their labour. This process, for an account of which I am indebted 
to Captain Basil Hall who witnessed it, is rather singular. Thirty 
women, for the most part elderly, and thought particularly trust- 
worthy, seat themselves, excepting one, round a circular land- 
ing-place without the entrance to the gallery. One only stands 
