That slave-labor is employed here, and slavery exists, we have sufficient proof in traveling through the country. Negroes being naturally a discontented race, they run away whenever an opportunity presents itself. One planter left us with a black slave at Colon. She had a rope tied around her waist, with which her master was leading her. She was well dressed, had some bundles in her arms, and looked very indifferent, generally. The laws forbid their being whipped; but the plantation-drivers all have huge lashes, which, when popped, sound like the distant report of fire-arms. The slaves are formed into ranks when they go to and return from their work; sometimes a hundred are seen in a drove, composed of both sexes. They are now employed in cutting cane, and load from thirty to fifty wagons at once before they move them to the mills for grinding and boiling. The mules grind the cane with veiled faces and sour looks for such sweet work. Cane only requires renewing here once in five or ten years; consequently, but few are planting or plowing. We visited one plantation for the purpose of seeing them work. Every thing was in a rush. Some had on chains for bad conduct; but their tasks had to be performed all the same. One coolie was pointed out as having been run away two years, hidden out at work with the colliers in the mountains. He was kept in the stocks at night, and made to work with his chains on during the day, of which he complained to the overseer's wife. She replied, "If they give you liberty you will go away again." He responded, "I will." The slaves were never treated with half the severity in the States which they receive here. Their quarters are miserable thatched huts, with earth floors, furnished with only an inclined plank for a bed, sick or well. Their principal food is rice and cassava-root, ground and baked in thin cakes. Slave-property has depreciated very much in Cuba since the insurrectionary movements, and at present none appear anxious to make investments in such precarious property. The importation of more coolies has been forbidden. Negroes from Africa have been landed here this winter. The coolies cannot learn to speak English well, but catch the Spanish language directly. Small negroes are plentiful; they all come around us, with their rude, naked, black bodies and woolly heads, to steal a sly glance at the strangers, and then run away. Many traveling monkeys look brighter, and manifest more signs of intelligence, than these creatures. As soon as they can walk they receive about the same attention as puppies--upon which they thrive very well. There is no Sunday on sugar-plantations, and all the slaves look as though they did not have sense to comprehend it, if any one should tell them they had a soul. They are only taught to work, and if they refuse, the stocks and chains are ready for them, and other punishments too, although the laws make a pretense of redressing their wrongs and ameliorating their condition.