Dreading the consequences, I commenced an apology, when my interpreter suddenly checked me by saying that it would be an insult to the lady not to smoke it. I received it with what good grace I could, although with something of a martyr spirit, well knowing the inevitable result. I resolved, however, to assume the best disguise I might; so I crossed my legs, and gently half closing my left eye, looked up to the ceiling with the little burning abhorrence sticking in my lips as if I was an old hand at the business. I was getting on with great proficiency, and had let off some half dozen tremendous puffs, when, reflecting upon the vulgarity of this tar-kiln operation, I attempted to squeeze it out through my nose. This [136] required experience; for, instead of giving it vent through that channel, I forced it down both into my lungs and stomach, thus creating deadly nausea, which caused me to break for the door like a quarter-horse to relieve my distress. The ready wit of my interpreter rendered my desponding speech into a compliment; but when I suddenly left my seat for the door to relieve my sickness, and he explained that, in compliment to her beauty, it was the first I had ever smoked, she was greatly flattered, at what made me the more inveterate against a nationality so disagreeable.

In objecting to this national custom among the ladies, a very intelligent Mexican gentleman said, "It may, señor, appear very obnoxious to your nation, but the force of habit makes it look well to us. The men of your nation masticate tobacco; the Turks and Chinese chew opium; and these, to us, appear to be a very filthy practice; and in the court circles of England and France, the most refined nations upon the earth, the ladies use morphine for the same purpose, while in a portion of your happy country your own women mop with snuff. Thus, what the English and French ladies abuse in the Turks and Chinese, the refinements of fashion and taste furnish them in a different shape; and what your women abuse in ours for its public use, they take by stealth, and in a still more displeasing manner. It is all, señor, for the purpose of creating artificial excitement; and while I say that you object to our [137] ladies smoking, we believe the most filthy of all practices is that of your 'snuff-dippers.'" He continued: "On one occasion, señor, I was in the habit of visiting a lady in your country, whose time of life was verging upon the 'sear and yellow leaf.' She was in the neighbourhood of that unwelcome thirty-three, which concentrates to the eye-corners those hateful crow-feet, which from that time is so sure to ride the countenance to the grave. In the morning this lady showed all the languor of previous excess, and she was as uninteresting until she spent an hour with her snuff-mop as if she had just awaked from the excessive use of ardent spirits. I once, by accident, saw her mopping - and such a mouth! I never after that time thought of her, but what I saw. Oh! that horrid mouth, in all its licentious indulgence; teeth, tongue, and gums were filled with this cruel-looking lava, which had overrun the crater, and formed a sable periphery of most frightful