Our Chinese crew were having their meal of rice when we walked forward, and the national chopsticks were hard at work.
We talked to several of them.

They could all speak a little Spanish, and were very intelligent.
The history of these Chinese emigrants is a curious one.

Agents in China persuade them to come out, and they sign a contract to work for eight years, receiving from three to five dollars a month, with their food and clothing.

The sum seems a fortune to them; but, when they come to Cuba, they find to their cost that the value of money must be estimated by what it will buy.

They find that the value of a black labourer is thirty dollars a month, and they have practically sold themselves for slaves; for there is no one to prevent the masters who have bought the contract for their work from treating them in all respects as slaves.