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Show 210 cunA. k eeper, wh o was the friend of our y· oung g.u id. e, gave us an equa1 1 y easy acl n1ission. W. c found m. 1t about r . I'd At··· ns who had JUSt been 1mported. IOl'ty lflVa I IICU • . , Tl I k d , cl'ated and melancholy. A ch1ld lymg 1ey oo ~e cn1.1 £ _ • • on a d resser,- w. r,L, l)ped in a blanket, was m the arttclc ofc 1e at1l . The whole scene, with the excde ptio.n. o f an 'dl I ht as one of mute sorrow an suUermg- 1 e aug er, w . . Iw art-ren d.m g to ourselves. Th1s barracoon was bmlt to contain one thousand negroes. Just at sundown we arrived at a third of similar size. It is close by t h e gard en Of. Tacon ' which is a place of constant public resort. It was evidently full of negr~es, w~ose voices we distinctly heard. We walked unb1dden mto the court yard, and saw the keeper turn the key of the last lock, after having shut them up for the night. Our guide timorously approached the scowling master, and begged admission for us into the dormitories. He gruffiy replied, "No son negros aqul"-there are no negroes here. We were therefore oblige_d to retire, not being much disposed to be ourselves m~arcerated in this den of iniquity. On the grass outs1de of the gate, however, there were sitting, dressed in coarse ;hirts marked with the letter D, about forty young men-a lot which had just been selected and purchased. The buyer was standing over them with _a memorandum book in his hand, viewing them as If they had been oxen. Good cause had he for an at~en· tive survey of their persons, for he had probably given 400 or 500 dollars per head, for them-from 16,000 to 20,000 dollars for the lot. Work them as he may, ':e could not conceive that this nefarious investment m human flesh and blood, could answer his purpose- CUBA. 2ll especially as so large a proportion of these miserable beings die in the seasoning. Onr yonng friends found their way to a fourth barracoon, where they saw several hundred newly imported children. They were in lean condition, and many of them with marks on their skins, of bruises or blows, probably received from rnbbing against the pannels of the vessel, in which they had been unmcrcifnlly crammed, like herrings in a barrel. We returned to our quarters at night, well satisfied with having seen these horrors, and with the information which a most interesting day had aHorded us, but heart-sickened and affiictcd. Oh, the unutterable difference between these hapless, hopeless creatures, and the well-conditioned free peasantry of Jamaica: The next day was the first in the week. A day of rest and worship it cannot be said to be at Havana. A certain proportion of the population do indeed attend the Roman Catholic churches, with a good deal of decency; but the generality seem to be given up to the utter neglect of religious duty. No Protestant worship is tolerated, not even in the house of the British Consul. A Friends' meeting may happily be held by the very few, as well as the multitude; and in a company of six persons of our boarding house, we were permitted to experi11nce some comfort and refreshment in our usual simple mode of worship. We the~ placed ourselves under the care of Jarn11s Norman, a religious merchant of the city, who led us to several of the public institutions-two lunatic asylums in bad ord.er; a benificentia, or endowed orph~n house, in which we found about three hundred white children. under pretty good tntelage; an excellent asylnm fo; p 2 |