Gatherings from Spain

by Richard Ford

Tobacco, this anodyne for the irritability of human reason, is, like spirituous liquors which make it drunk, a highly-taxed article in all civilized societies. In Spain, the Bourbon dynasty (as elsewhere) is the hereditary tobacconist-general, and the privilege of sale is generally farmed out to some contractor: accordingly, such a trump as a really good home-made cigar is hardly to be had for love or money in the Peninsula. Diogenes would sooner expect to find an honest man in any of the government offices. As there is no royal road to the science of cigar-making, the article is badly concocted, of bad materials, and, to add insult to injury, is charged at a most exorbitant price. In order to benefit the Havañah, tobacco is not allowed to be grown in Spain, which it would do in perfection in the neighbourhood of Malaga; for the experiment was made, and having turned out quite successfully, the cultivation was immediately prohibited. The iniquity and dearness of the royal tobacco makes the fortune of the well-meaning smuggler, who being here, as everywhere, the great corrector of blundering chancellors of exchequers, provides a better and cheaper thing from Gibraltar.

SMUGGLED CIGARS.

The proof of the extent to which his dealings are carried was exemplified in 1828, when many thousand additional hands were obliged to be put on to the manufactories at Seville and Granada, to meet the increased demand occasioned by the impossibility of obtaining supplies from Gibraltar, in consequence of the yellow fever which was then raging there. No offence is more dreadfully punished in Spain than that of tobacco-smuggling, which robs the queen’s pocket—all other robbery is treated as nothing, for her lieges only suffer.

The encouragement afforded to the manufacture and smuggling of cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing source of ill blood and ill will between the Spanish and English governments. This most serious evil is contrary to all treaties, injurious to Spain and England alike, and is beneficial only to aliens of the worst character, who form the real plague and sore of Gibraltar. The American and every other nation import their own tobacco, good, bad, and indifferent, into the fortress free of duty, and without repurchasing British produce. It is made into cigars by Genoese, is smuggled into Spain by aliens, in boats under the British flag, which is disgraced by the traffic and exposed to insult from the revenue cutters of Spain, which it cannot in justice expect to have redressed. The Spaniards would have winked at the introduction of English hardware and cottons—objects of necessity, which do not interfere with this, their chief manufacture, and one of the most productive of royal monopolies. There is a wide difference between encouraging real British commerce and this smuggling of foreign cigars, nor can Spain be expected to observe treaties towards us while we infringe them so scandalously and unprofitably on our parts.

LIGHTING CIGARS.

Many tobacchose epicures, who smoke their regular dozen or two, place the evil sufficient for the day between fresh lettuce-leaves; this damps the outer leaf of the article, and improves the narcotic effect; mem., the inside, the trail, las tripas, as the Spaniards call it, should be kept quite dry. The disordered interior of the royal cigars is masked by a good outside wrapper leaf, just as Spanish rags are cloaked by a decent capa, but l’habit ne fait pas le cigarre. Few except the rich can afford to smoke good cigars. Ferdinand VII., unlike his ancestor Louis XIV., “qui,” says La Beaumelle, “haïssoit le tabac singulièrement, quoiqu’un de ses meilleurs revenus,” was not only a grand compounder but consumer thereof. He indulged in the royal extravagance of a very large thick cigar made in the Havañah expressly for his gracious use, as he was too good a judge to smoke his own manufacture. Even of these he seldom smoked more than the half; the remainder was a grand perquisite, like our palace lights. The cigar was one of his pledges of love and hatred: he would give one to his favourites when in sweet temper; and often, when meditating a treacherous coup, would dismiss the unconscious victim with a royal puro: and when the happy individual got home to smoke it, he was saluted by an Alguacil with an order to quit Madrid in twenty-four hours. The “innocent” Isabel, who does not smoke, substitutes sugar-plums; she regaled Olozaga with a sweet present, when she was “doing him” at the bidding of the Christinist camarilla. It would seem that the Spanish Bourbons, when not “cretinised” into idiots, are creatures composed of cunning and cowardice. But “those who cannot dissimulate are unfit to reign” was the axiom of their illustrious ancestor Louis XI.

LIGHTING CIGARS.

In Spain the bulk of their happy subjects cannot afford, either the expense of tobacco, which is dear to them, or the gain of time, which is very cheap, by smoking a whole cigar right away. They make one afford occupation and recreation for half an hour. Though few Spaniards ruin themselves in libraries, none are without a little blank book of a particular paper, which is made at Alcoy, in Valencia. At any pause all say at once—“pues, señores! echaremos un cigarrito—well then, my Lords, let us make a little cigar,” and all set seriously to work; every man, besides this book, is armed with a small case of flint, steel, and a combustible tinder. To make a paper cigar, like putting on a cloak, is an operation of much more difficulty than it seems, although all Spaniards, who have done nothing so much, from their childhood upwards, perform both with extreme facility and neatness. This is the mode:—the petaca, Arabicè Buták, or little case worked by a fair hand, in the coloured thread of the aloe, in which the store of cigars is kept, is taken out—a leaf is torn from the book, which is held between the lips, or downwards from the back of the hand, between the fore and middle finger of the left hand—a portion of the cigar, about a third, is cut off and rubbed slowly in the palms till reduced to a powder—it is then jerked into the paper-leaf, which is rolled up into a little squib, and the ends doubled down, one of which is bitten off and the other end is lighted. The cigarillo is smoked slowly, the last whiff being the bonne bouche, the breast, la pechuga. The little ends are thrown away: they are indeed little, for a Spanish fore-finger and thumb are quite fire-browned and fire-proof, although some polished exquisites use silver holders; these remnants are picked up by the beggar-boys, who make up into fresh cigars the leavings of a thousand mouths. There is no want of fire in Spain; everywhere, what we should call link-boys run about with a slowly-burning rope for the benefit of the public. At many of the sheds where water and lemonade are sold, one of the ropes, twirled like a snake round a post, and ignited, is kept ready as the match of a besieged artilleryman; while in the houses of the affluent, a small silver chafing-dish, with lighted charcoal, is usually on a table. Mr. Henningsen relates that Zumalacarreguy, when about to execute some Christinos at Villa Franca, observed one (a schoolmaster) looking about, like Raleigh, for a light for his last dying puff in this life, upon which the General took his own cigar from his mouth, and handed it to him. The schoolmaster lighted his own, returned the other with a respectful bow, and went away smoking and reconciled to be shot. This urgent necessity levels all ranks, and it is allowable to stop any person for fire; this proves the practical equality of all classes, and that democracy under a despotism, which exists in smoking Spain, as in the torrid East. The cigar forms a bond of union, an isthmus of communication between most heterogeneous oppositions. It is the habeas corpus of Spanish liberties. The soldier takes fire from the canon’s lip, and the dark face of the humble labourer is whitened by the reflection of the cigar of the grandee and lounger. The lowest orders have a coarse roll or rope of tobacco, wherewith to solace their sorrows, and it is their calumet of peace. Some of the Spanish fair sex are said to indulge in a quiet hidden cigarilla, una pajita, una reyna, but it is not thought either a sign of a lady, or of one of rigid virtue, to have recourse to these forbidden pleasures; for, says their proverb, whoever makes one basket will make a hundred.

TIME LOST BY TOBACCO.

Nothing exposes a traveller to more difficulty than carrying much tobacco in his luggage; yet all will remember never to be without some cigars, and the better the better. It is a trifling outlay, for although any cigar is acceptable, yet a real good one is a gift from a king. The greater the enjoyment of the smoker, the greater his respect for the donor; a cigar may be given to everybody, whether high or low: thus the petaca is offered, as a polite Frenchman of La Vieille Cour (a race, alas! all but extinct) offered his snuff-box, by way of a prelude to conversation and intimacy. It is an act of civility, and implies no superiority, nor is there any humiliation in the acceptance; it is twice blessed, “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” It is the spell wherewith to charm the natives, who are its ready and obedient slaves, and, like a small kind word spoken in time, it works miracles. There is no country in the world where the stranger and traveller can purchase for half-a-crown, half the love and good-will which its investment in tobacco will ensure, therefore the man who grudges or neglects it is neither a philanthropist nor a philosopher.