"The best properties known as _vegas_, or tobacco farms, are comprised in a narrow area in the south-west part of the island, about twenty-seven leagues broad. Near the western extremity of the Island of Cuba, on the southern coast, is found one of the finest tobaccos in the world. Within a space of seventy-three miles long and eighteen miles wide, grows the plant that stands as eminent among tobacco plants as the lordly Johannisberger among the wines of the Rhine. Shut in on the north by mountains, and south-west by the ocean, Pinar del Rio being the principal point in the district. These _vegas_ are found generally on the margins of rivers, or in low, moist localities, their ordinary size being not more than a _coballeria_, which amounts to about thirty-three acres of our measurement. The half of this is also most frequently devoted to the raising of the vegetable known as the _platano_ (banana), which may be said to be the bread of the lower classes. A few other small vegetables are raised. The usual buildings upon such places are a dwelling house, a drying-house, a few sheds for cattle, and perhaps a small _bohio_ (hut), or two, made in the rudest manner, for the shelter of the hands, who, upon some of the very largest places number twenty or thirty, though not always negroes--for this portion of the labor of the island seems to be performed by the lower classes of whites. Some of the places that are large have a mayoral, as he is called, a man whose business it is to look after the negroes, and direct the agricultural labors; but, as a general thing, the planter, who is not always the owner of the property, but simply the lessee, lives upon, directs, and governs the place.