goods. A
snuff-taker is rarely to be met with, and few, if any, chew the weed,
if we except the stevedores and foreign sailors to be seen about the
shore and shipping. Havana has no wharves, properly speaking; vessels
are loaded and discharged by means of lighters or scows. The negroes
become passionately fond of the pipe, inhaling into their lungs the
rich, powerful narcotic and driving it out again at their nostrils in
slow, heavy clouds, half dozing over the dreamy effect. The postilion
who waits for a fare upon the street passes half his time in this way,
dreaming over his pipe of pure Havana, or renewing constantly his
cigarette. The price of manufactured tobacco in Cuba is about one half
that which we pay for the same article in America, either at wholesale
or retail, as shipping expenses, export duty, and import duty must be
added to the price charged to the consumer.

In discussing this habit one naturally looks back about four hundred
years, recalling the amazement of the Spanish discoverers, when they
first landed here, at seeing the Indians smoking a native weed which
was called tobacco. The practice was, at that time, entirely unknown
in Europe, though now indulged in as a luxury by nearly half the
population of the globe.

We have only a partial idea at the North of the true character of
tropical fruits, since only a small portion of them are of such a
nature as to admit of exportation, and such as are forwarded to us
must be gathered in an unripe condition in order to survive a short
sea-voyage. The orange which we eat in Boston or New York, therefore,
is a very different-flavored fruit from the same when partaken of in
Havana or Florida. The former has been picked green and ripened on
shipboard, as a general thing; the latter was perhaps on the tree an
hour before you ate it, ripened under its native skies and upon its
parent stem. So of the banana, one of the most delightful and
nutritious of all West Indian fruits, which grows everywhere in Cuba
with prodigal profuseness,--though we are told that as regards this
fruit it is claimed that, like some varieties of our pear, it ripens
as well off the tree as on it; and the same is the case with some
other fleshy fruits. After the banana has attained its full growth,
the final process of ripening commences, as it were, within itself;
that is to say, the fruit ceases to depend upon the tree for
sustenance or farther development. The pulp becomes gradually
s