CHAPTER V
IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH
I visited Valle Nacional in the latter part of 1908, spending a week in the region and stopping at all the larger plantations. I passed three nights at various plantation houses and four more at one or another of the towns. As in Yucatan, I visited the country in the guise of a probable purchaser of plantations.
As in Yucatan, I succeeded in convincing authorities and planters that I had several million dollars behind me just aching to be invested. Consequently, I put them as completely off their guard as it would be possible to do. As in Yucatan, I was able to secure my information, not only from what I saw of and heard from the slaves, but from the mouths of the masters themselves. Indeed, I was more fortunate than I was in Yucatan. I chummed with bosses and police so successfully that they never once became suspicious, and for months some of them were doubtless looking for me to drop in any fine day with a few million in my pocket, prepared to buy them out at double the value of their property.
The nearer we approached Valle Nacional the greater horror of the place we found among the people. None had been there, but all had heard rumors, some had seen survivors, and the sight of those walking corpses had confirmed the rumors. As we got off the train at Cordoba, we saw crossing the platform a procession of fourteen men, two in front and two behind with rifles, ten with their arms bound behind them with ropes, their
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