[37] An intelligent letter-writer estimates the present annual importation of slaves at not less than 10,000 souls, direct from Africa. [38] "One of the chief features in this sport, and which attracted so many, myself among the number, was a young and beautiful girl, as lovely a creature as Heaven ever smiled upon, being one of the chief actresses in the exciting and thrilling scene."--_Rev. L.L. Allen's Lecture._ [39] "The waist is slender, but never compressed by corsets, so that it retains all its natural proportions."--_Countess Merlin's Letters._ [40] "They have plump figures, placid, unwrinkled countenances, well-developed busts, and eyes the brilliant languor of which is not the languor of illness."--_W.C. Bryant's Letters._ [41] "The broadsword dangles by the side of the gentleman, and holsters are inseparable from his saddle; the simplest countryman, on his straw saddle, belts on his rude cutlass, and every man with a skin less dark than an African appears ready for encounter."--_Rev. Abiel Abbot's Letters._ [42] "They are men of manly bearing, of thin make, but often of a good figure, with well-spread shoulders, which, however, have a stoop in them, contracted, I suppose, by riding always with a short stirrup."--_W.C. Bryant's Letters._ CHAPTER XI. A sugar plantation--Americans employed--Slaves on the plantations--A coffee plantation--Culture of coffee, sugar and tobacco--Statistics of agriculture--The cucullos, or Cuban fire-fly--Novel ornaments worn by the ladies--The Cuban mode of harnessing oxen--The montero and his horse--Curious style of out-door painting--Petty annoyances to travellers--Jealousy of the authorities--Japan-like watchfulness--Questionable policy--Political condition of Cuba.