Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/106

 “A smoking-room!” I exclaimed. “So you have some cigars on board?”

“Certainly.”

“Then I am obliged to think that you must preserve relations with Havana.”

“Not at all,” replied the captain. “Try this cigar, and though it is very certain it never came from Havana, I think you will like the flavour.”

I took the cigar, which was made like those sold in London, but it appeared to be composed of leaves of gold. I lit it at a little bronze brazier and inhaled its fragrance with all the gusto of a man who had not smoked for two days.

“It is excellent,” I said, “but it is not tobacco.”

“No,” replied the captain, “that weed never grew in Havana nor the East. It is a kind of sea-weed, rich in nicotine, which the ocean supplies to me somewhat sparely. Do you regret your London cigar?”

“My dear sir, I shall despise them henceforth.”

“Well, then, smoke as much as you like, and without thinking of the origin of the cigars. They bear the brand of no nation, but they are not the less good, I fancy.”

“On the contrary.”

Captain Nemo then opened a door opposite to that by which we had entered, and I passed into a large and brilliantly-lighted salon.

It was a large oblong with walls sloping inwards, ten yards long, six wide, and five high. The lighted ceiling, decorated by arabesques, distributed a clear and