Coruña has not so many chocolate factories as formerly. When Cuba belonged to Spain, the Cubans exported large quantities of cocoa nibs to the mother country, but, since the war, that branch of commerce has been interfered with to such an extent that many manufacturers have left Spain to settle in Cuba and start factories over there instead, so that Coruña has lost much of her chocolate-making industry. I visited a Coruña chocolate factory and saw cocoa nibs put into a machine and ground to powder; in another machine the powder was being mixed with cane sugar; and in a third the blocks of chocolate, weighing a hundredweight, were being cut up into half-pound strips; a fourth machine kept the little tin moulds into which the melted chocolate was poured continuously shaking, so that the chocolate might not stick. In the next department we watched a number of women rolling up chocolate cigarettes in silver paper. The poor of Coruña subsist chiefly upon vegetables. I devoted some of my time to visiting them, that I might get a correct idea of their circumstances and the kind of life they led. One woman who earned her daily bread as a charwoman took me up to her room on the fourth storey of a house that appeared to be built almost entirely of wood. The room, which she shared with her little daughter, contained two beds, a table, and a chair. It had neither windows nor fireplace--in fact, no opening of any kind but the door, and was so dark even with the door open that she had to light a candle in order to show me the size of the room and the prints and photographs with which the walls were adorned. For this abode the woman paid three pesetas (half a crown) a month. There were several such rooms on the same floor, tenanted in a similar manner, and a general kitchen with charcoal cooking hearth was at the service of all. These poor people take a cup of coffee or chocolate for their early breakfast, and their dinner consists of a bread-and-vegetable soup, called Gallegan broth (_kaldo Gallego_), which is famed all over Spain, and a sardine, or other fish, on the days that they can afford it. More coffee is drunk than chocolate; they find that it is a greater stimulant. The best chocolate in Coruña costs four pesetas (three shillings and fourpence) a pound, but that used by the poor costs them only one peseta (tenpence) a pound. On leaving the house, I asked the poor woman if she was not afraid of the house taking fire, seeing that it was all of wood and that they used candles so constantly. “Oh no,” she replied, smiling; “I have never heard of a house in Coruña being burnt, and I have lived here all my life.” Coming out of the door, I met a woman with a market gardener’s heavy basket on her head filled with cabbages and potatoes; in her arms she carried a little baby.