sold in leaf, and is called by the Arabs _hamumi_, after a well-known growth in Hazramaut. It is impossible to give an average price to tobacco in East Africa; it varies from 1 khete of coral beads per 6 oz. to 2 lbs." Some of the most beautiful and fragrant tobacco fields in the world are to be found in Syria. Indeed it may truthfully be said that a field of Latakia tobacco is hardly inferior in beauty to the large and fragrant orchards of the olive and mulberry, or the wheat fields on the terraced sides of Mount Lebanon. The tobacco plant is cultivated in various parts of Syria and particularly by the Druses on "The Lebanon," as it is usually called. [Illustration: Tobacco field in Syria.] The cultivation of tobacco in Syria, has been a considerable industry, and the product has acquired a reputation in European markets that has demonstrated its real value, and a constant demand for this variety of the plant. Latakia tobacco resembles in flavor the yellow tobacco of Eastern Thibet and Western China, both of them grown from the same seed. Latakia tobacco is not sweated like most tobacco, but is first cured in the sun and then hung up in the peasants' huts to cure until ready for market. The plants ripen very fast and emit an aromatic odor, increasing in strength as the plants ripen. For smoking it has but few superiors. After curing, it is baled and sent to Europe, where it is manufactured into smoking tobacco. The plants are well cultivated and watched against the ravages of birds, which seem to like the young and tender plants especially before they are transplanted. From the nature of the soil the plants are watered frequently, and when the leaves are about the size of a large cabbage leaf are ready to harvest. As the plants ripen the leaves gradually thicken and take on a lighter shade; the leaf when green is very thick, but after curing is quite thin and of a bright yellow or brown, according to the process employed in curing. The peasants take equal pains in its fumigation, using various kinds of wood according to the color of leaf they wish to obtain. They usually make two kinds of leaf, the finest being colored brown and known by the name of _abowri_. The tobacco is fumigated with two kinds of wood, _gozen_ (pine wood) and _sindian_ (oak), the tobacco fumigated with gozen having the best smell. The fumigation, however, is said not to be resorted to expressly for the tobacco, but the mountaineers of necessity burn much wood in their huts in the winter, and the smoke improves the tobacco in color, smell, and flavor. All the tobacco grown about Latakia derives its origin from the same seed, but the difference between the _abowri_ and the other kinds is owing to the cultivation of the former about high mountains and with the use of pine wood in fumigating it. A field of Latakia tobacco presents a novel appearance, the short straight plants with their ovate leaves