As the train started from Cruces, a quiet shower distilled itself. It rains in Cuba without threatening skies or any visible preparation. There is no rolling up of squadrons into threatening ranks, the moisture appearing to come from nowhere. The shower was like beauty blushing through tears, the skies were so lovely, and the rain-drops very gentle. It is harvest-time now on the island. Every thing is hurry and rush, while both men and beasts are, many of them, driven to death. When we stopped at the first station it was early in the morning, and day was breaking. Carts, drawn by oxen and loaded with sugar-hogsheads which had come from miles away, were standing there. Poor brutes! What a look of subjugation they all have, with an immense ring through their noses, and no yoke around their necks but a small one fastened to their heads and horns, by which the loads are drawn! These oxen are of immense size, with tremendously long horns. They are not the Florida stock of cattle, but brought from Mexico. They drive them with goads, or sharpened pieces of iron, which are very severe. Nothing is treated so badly here as the patient ox, the mortality among them being greater than all the other animals combined. Acres of sugar-hogsheads now cover the grounds around the depots. The wealth of the country--that before which all other products sink into insignificance--is the rich sugar-cane, supplying more than half the world with its saccharine deposits. The cane raised here is three per cent. richer than that raised in the Southern States. It grows from four to eight feet in height, according to the fertility of the soil. It is now March, and the summit of the cane is crowned with its useful blooms, which are gathered and dried for upholstering purposes, while the leaves are cut and used for the sustenance of stock, which are herded, watched, and fed, night and day, when not working. In passing through the country we frequently see, remote from any dwelling, small tents stretched over a cot-bed. Here is where the coolie cattle-herder sleeps. The heavy dews, with the hot sunshine at midday, to which they are exposed, must finish out the existence of these poor wretches very soon.