398 Voyage of the Novara. 



human flesh, to drag out a miserable existence far from home. 

 They' are chiefly sent from Macao to the Havanna. We 

 visited the house in which these pitiable objects are confined 

 till the departure of the ship ; we saw the haggard, reckless 

 look of these wretched beings, who, despite the dreadful fate 

 that awaits them, hire themselves out to Portuguese and 

 Spanish kidnappers. In return for a free passage to Havanna, 

 they bind themselves to work for eight years after their 

 arrival with whatever master is found for them at four dollars 

 a month,* a rate of wage very much lower than that paid 

 to the labourer of the country, or even to the manumitted slave. 

 This immense difiference however does not accrue so nmch 

 to the West India planter as to the speculators who are 

 engaged in the importation of Chinese, for each of whom a 

 large premium is paid. The voyage, which usually lasts from 

 four to five months and costs about £70 a-head, is chiefly 

 carried on in French, Portuguese, and — alas ! that it should 

 be so — English and German ships. What sufferings the 

 unhappy emigrants are exposed to during the voyage, appears 

 from the fact that a number of them not unfrequently jump 

 overboard, to seek a refuge from tlieir misery under the 

 waves. Cases have been known in which, owing to hard fare 

 and mismanagement, 38 per cent, of the emigrants have died 

 on the passage If 



* Even these four dollars sustain a reduction during the first year, since the 

 emigrant must for the first year pay one dollar a month to defray necessaries, partly 

 provisions, partly clothes, supplied to him to the amount of 812, before his departure. 



t J. F. Crawford, Esq., British Consul-General at the Havanna, iu an official 



