There they are, in every respect the right article for trade:--brown-skinned, incapable of defending themselves, strong, healthy, and industrious; and the creeks and mangrove-swamps of Cuba only three days' sail off.
The plantations and mines that want one hundred thousand men to bring them into full work, and swallow aborigines, Chinese, and negroes indifferently--anything that has a dark skin, and can be made to work--would take these Yucatecos in any quantity, and pay well for them.

And once on a sugar-estate or down a mine, when their sham registers are regularly made out, and the Governor has had his ounce of gold apiece for passing them, and his subordinates their respective rights, who shall get them out again, or even find them?
This idea struck us as we sat looking at the Indians hard at work, loading and unloading; and finding an intelligent Spaniard, we fell to talking with him.

Indians had been carried off to Cuba, he said, but very few, none since 1854, when two Englishmen came to the coast with a schooner on pretence of trading, and succeeded in getting clear off with a cargo of seventy-two natives on board.

But being caught in a heavy gale of wind, they put in for safety--of all places in the world--into the British part of Belize.

There some one found out what their cargo consisted of, the vessel was seized, the Indians sent back, and the two adventurers condemned to hard labour, one for four years, the other for two and a half.