He described Cuban slavery as, on the whole, mild; corporal punishment being restricted by law to a few blows, and very seldom employed: but the mildness seemed dictated rather by self-interest than by humanity.

'Ill-use our slaves ?' said a Cuban to him.

'We cannot afford it.

You take good care of your four-legged mules: we of our two-legged ones.' The children, it seems, are taken away from the mothers, not merely because the mothers are needed for work, but because they neglect their offspring so much that the children have more chance of living--and therefore of paying--if brought up by hand.

So each estate has, or had, its creche, as the French would call it--a great nursery, in which the little black things are reared, kindly enough, by the elder ladies of the estate.