260 
CrLIITATTOTf OF 'WHEAT. 
piastres ; for 1825, onlj 70,302 pounds of cigars, and 167,100 
pounds ot tobacco in leaves; but it must be remembered 
that no branch of contraband is more active than that 
ot cigars Although the tobacco of the Yuelta de ahaxo is 
the most famous, a considerable exportation takes place in 
the eastern part of the island. I rather doubt the total 
exportation of 200,000 boxes of cigars (value 2 000 000 
piastres), as stated by several travellers during latter years. 
t ''“’veats were thus abundant, why should the island 
of Cuba receive tobacco from the United States for the con- 
mmptloa oi the lower class ot people ? 
I shall say nothing of the cotton, the indigo, or the 
wheat ot the island of Cuba. These branches of colonial 
industry are of comparatively little importance; and the 
proximity ot the United States and Guatimala renders com- 
petition almost impossible. The state of Salvador, belonging 
to the Conlederatioii of Central America, now throws 12 000 
tercios annually, or 1,800,000 pounds of indigo into trade; 
an exportation which amounts to more than 2,000,000 pias- 
tres. Iho cultivation of wheat succeeds (to the great Lto- 
nishracut of travellers who have passed through Mexico) 
near the Quatro Villas, at small heights above riie level of 
the ocean, though m general it is very limited. The flour is 
fine ; but colOTial productions are more tempting, and the 
plains of the Umted States— that Crimea of the Kew World 
yield harrests ^o abundant for the commerce of native 
cereals to be efficaciously protected by the prohibitive 
system of the eustom^oiise, in an island near the mouth of the 
Mississippi and the Delaware. Analogous difficulties oppose 
the cidtiyation of fla.x, hemp, and the vine. Possibly the inha- 
bitants ol (Alba are themselves ignorant of the fact that, in the 
first years of the conquest by the Spaniards, wine was made 
m their island ol wild gi-apes.* This kind of vine, peculiar 
algoagriQ. [1 lom several grape-bearing vine.? which grow in Ihe moun- 
’! 5 I'vt it is very add.] (Iltrera Dec I 
p. 233.) Gabriel >le Cabrera found a tradition at Cuba siniilai^ to that 
winch the people of Semitic race have ot Noah, experiencing for the first 
of^er'^nfnaklr . “c adds, that the idelof two races 
men, one naked, another clothed, is linked to tlie American tradition. 
m e e?thr worr''nf rl inter- 
pieted the woids of the natives, or, as seems more probable, has h« 
