which 18,000 are infantry, 1000 cavalry, and 1000 artillery[Z].  The demand for labour in the island is so great, that a speculation has been entered into by a mercantile house here to bring 6000 Chinese.  The speculator has already disposed of them at 24l. a-head; they are to serve for five years, and receive four shillings a day, and they find their own way back.  The cost of bringing them is calculated at 10l. a head,—­thus leaving 14l. gain on each, which, multiplied by 6000, gives 84,000l. profit to the speculator,—­barring, of course, losses from deaths and casualties on the journey.  Chinese have already been tried here, and they prove admirably suited to all the mechanical labour, but far inferior to the negroes in the fields.

I find that people in the Havana can he humbugged as well as John Bull.  A Chinese botanist came here, and bethought him of trying his skill as a doctor.  Everybody became mad to consult him; no street was ever so crowded as the one he lived in, since Berners-street on the day of the hoax.  He got a barrel of flour, or some other innocuous powder, packed up in little paper parcels, and thus armed he received his patients.  On entering, he felt the pulse with becoming silence and gravity; at last he said, “Great fire.”  He then put his hand on the ganglionic centre, from which he radiated to the circumjacent parts, and then, frowning deep thought, he observed, “Belly great swell; much wind; pain all round.”  His examination being thus accomplished, he handed the patient a paper of the innocuous powder, pocketed sixteen shillings, and dismissed him.  This scene, without any variety in observation, examination, prescription, or fee, was going on for two months, at the expiration of which time he re-embarked for China with 8000l.

As I believe that comparatively little is known in England of the laws existing in Cuba with respect to domicile, police, slavery, &c., I shall devote a few pages to the subject, which, in some of its details, is amusing enough.  No person is allowed to land on the island without a passport from the place whence he arrives, and a fiador, or surety, in the island, who undertakes to supply the authorities with information of the place of his residence for one year; nor can he remain in the island more than three months without a “domiciliary ticket.”  People of colour arriving in any vessel are to be sent to a government deposit; if the master prefers to keep them on board he may, but in that case he is liable to a fine of 200l. if any of them land on the island; after a certain hour in the evening all gatherings in the street are put a stop to, and everybody is required to carry a lantern about with him; the hierarchy and “swells”—­personas de distincion—­being alone exempt.  All purchases made from slaves or children or doubtful parties are at the risk of the purchaser, who is liable not merely to repay the price given, but is further subject to a heavy fine:  no bad law either.