stopped there a day to
recruit. During our stay we witnessed a curious scene. While we were
enjoying our cigars in the cool of the evening upon the "azotea" of our
hotel, we saw a file of soldiers march up to a house directly opposite,
and after repeated efforts to enter, they finally burst open the door;
reappearing in a few moments with seven or eight "coolies," who were
apparently dead drunk, but in reality were stupefied with opium; having
met, by appointment, to "shuffle off this mortal coil" after this
characteristic fashion. One or two of them were quite beyond
resuscitation, and the others were only prevented from sinking into
fatal insensibility by severe flogging with bamboo canes, and being
forced to keep upon their feet. We were informed that suicide is very
common among them in Cuba; it being their last resort against misery and
oppression. Colonel Totten, the able civil engineer who constructed the
railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, once gave a party of us a graphic
account of the mortality among a number of them, who had been employed
by him in that pestilential climate. Having no access to opium, and
being deprived of knives, they resorted to the most ingenious modes of
self destruction. Sometimes they would wade out in the bay at low water,
with a pole, which they would stick firmly into the mud, and securely
tying themselves to it, would wait for the rising tide to drown them.
Others would point a stake by charring it in the fire and impale
themselves upon it.

The evils of this system of labor cannot be truthfully denied. Ignorant
even of the nature of the contract which binds them to servitude, the
coolies are driven in crowds to the ship which is to transport them to
another hemisphere; and they endure all the horrors of the "middle
passage" during their long voyage.

When they arrive at their port of destination in the West Indies they
are apprenticed for a term of years to the planters who need their
services, and many of them succumb to the tropical climate and the
severe labor in the cane field. Many more seek a ready means of escape
in death. The philanthropy of the civilized governments, which has been
concentrated for many years upon efforts to liberate the "black man and
brother," has never been exerted to rescue "John China-man" from a
crueler thraldom and a harder lot.

Taking the train for Havana, we passed through a very beautiful country,
luxuriant with tropical verdure; the most