Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume II / (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the / Austrian Navy.

by Ritter von Karl Scherzer

Macao is at present the chief point for the shipment of Chinese labourers or coolies to the West Indies. There are above 10,000 Chinese annually whom hunger and want drive to sell themselves virtually as slaves to the traders in

human flesh, to drag out a miserable existence far from home. They are chiefly sent from Macao to the Havanna. We visited the house in which these pitiable objects are confined till the departure of the ship; we saw the haggard, reckless look of these wretched beings, who, despite the dreadful fate that awaits them, hire themselves out to Portuguese and Spanish kidnappers. In return for a free passage to Havanna, they bind themselves to work for eight years after their arrival with whatever master is found for them at four dollars a month,[121] a rate of wage very much lower than that paid to the labourer of the country, or even to the manumitted slave. This immense difference however does not accrue so much to the West India planter as to the speculators who are engaged in the importation of Chinese, for each of whom a large premium is paid. The voyage, which usually lasts from four to five months and costs about £70 a head, is chiefly carried on in French, Portuguese, and—alas! that it should be so—English and German ships. What sufferings the unhappy emigrants are exposed to during the voyage, appears from the fact that a number of them not unfrequently jump overboard, to seek a refuge from their misery under the waves. Cases have been known in which, owing to hard fare and mismanagement, 38 per cent. of the emigrants have died on the passage![122]

The society which takes charge of this trade in exporting men is known as the Colonisadora, and has its head-quarters in the Havanna. Each Chinese must before leaving Macao subscribe a contract which is for the exclusive benefit of the society, and by which the poor emigrants explicitly renounce all the advantage they might derive from certain paragraphs in the Spanish Emigration Act, passed in 1854, which bear upon the interpretation of such contracts. As it is usually only the very poorest, most shiftless, and most ignorant class that emigrates, the contract is enforced without the smallest scruple, and if afterwards the emigrant in the foreign country becomes aware of the privations and oppression he has to submit to in comparison with other workers, the obligations he has entered into are made use of to invoke the protection of the Spanish authorities.[123] The fact however that these latter secretly favour the objections of the colonization society, sufficiently proves that the interests of a social class and the extension of the labour market in the island are considered by them as of far higher importance than the good of mankind.

To the English Government is due the credit of having initiated an energetic protest against this trade in human beings, and of having taken such steps as tend to mitigate the evil consequences which cannot but result from such a system of deportation. Its representative at the Havanna, Mr. Crawford, was the first and indeed only individual who ventured to make representations to the Spanish Government as to the little humanity shown for these poor Chinese emigrants, and to draw public attention to the system.[124] Under a humane and well-managed

administration of the emigration system in China, it might prove of immense service to those countries which are eager to absorb labour, as, owing to the super-abundance of labour in China, a far larger supply as well as a much higher class of labourers might be procured.

M. de Carlowitz was so kind as to accompany us in our various rambles to the more interesting sights and points of view, and more especially when we were busied "doing" the "lines" of the city. On an eminence in the suburbs, about 200 feet high, is what is known as Monte fort, garrisoned by 150 men, whence there is a charming panorama, and the eye catches sight of the Chinese village of Whang-hia, at the period of our visit most hostilely disposed, and where on July 3rd, 1844, the first treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce, was drawn up and signed between China and the United States. Another hill, about 300 feet high, at the outer extremity of the peninsula, on which many years ago the Portuguese had erected a fort, of which only the foundations can now be traced, commands the tongue of land on which stands the city, as well as all the eastern portion of the island, and amply repays the trouble of ascent. On the road thither, by which the communication with the mainland of China is mainly carried on, we came upon the corpse of a coolie, which had apparently lain for several days in the very middle of the

road. A part of the head and the right hand had been already stripped of the flesh by the carrion-crows, and enormous swarms of insects had fastened on the upper portions of the naked horribly swollen dead body. The miserable being had obviously fallen a victim to want and destitution. His strength seemed to have failed him while he was earning his miserable subsistence, as two empty broken panniers were lying close beside him. Crowds of people were passing daily, men, women, children, even Portuguese taking their customary promenade on foot or on horseback, without any person giving himself the least trouble to remove the shocking spectacle. Even the representations of the foreign consuls seem to have but little influence on the Portuguese authorities in these matters, and it appears that it is by no means an infrequent occurrence to see dead bodies lying about. A hardly less sickening spectacle was presented on the slope of the hill, where were erected a couple of dozen of small, wretched, filthy huts of palm-straw, which served for the reception of a number of sick and lepers, who, shunned and abandoned by all the world, were sinking in their misery into the grave. Leprosy is regarded by the Chinese as a punishment for secret sins, and those visited with it are accordingly deprived of all assistance or attention. Very probably this coolie, whose body we thus saw lying on the road, was one of those unfortunates who were here digging, as it were, their own graves.

The isthmus which unites the Portuguese settlement on the