feminine lines of that lovely river, the Papaloapan. Picture those ten slaves, six with the regulation high straw hat of the plebeian Mexican, four with felts, all barefooted now except the boy musician, who is sure to throw away his shoes before the end of the journey, half of them bare-handed, imagining that the masters will furnish them blankets or extra clothing, the other half with small bundles of bright-colored blankets on their backs; finally, the mounted and uniformed rurales, one in front and one behind; and the American travelers at the extreme rear.
Soon we began to see gangs of men, from twenty to one hundred, at work in the fields preparing the ground for the tobacco planting. The men were the color of the ground, and it struck me as strange that they moved incessantly while the ground was still. Here and there among the moving shapes stood others—these seemed different; they really looked like men—with long, lithe canes in their hands and sometimes swords and pistols in their belts. We knew then that we had reached Valle Nacional.
The first farm at which we stopped was "San Juan del Rio." Crouching beside the porch of the main building was a sick slave. One foot was swollen to twice its natural size and a dirty bandage was wrapped clumsily about it. "What's the matter with your foot?" I asked. "Blood poisoning from insect bites," replied the slave. "He'll have maggots in another day or two," a boss told us with a grin.
As we rode away we caught our first glimpse of a Valle Nacional slave-house, a mere jail with barred windows, a group of women bending over metates, and a guard at the door with a key.
I have said that our rurale corporal was opposed to the
