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90 the killing because he needed the slaves, so he himself had secured the arrest of the foreman. As to the other case:

"In past years they used to pick up a derelict American once in awhile and ship him down here," said my informant, "but the trouble this particular one kicked up has resulted in Americans being barred altogether. This American was sent to 'San Cristobal,' the farm of Candido Fernandez. At this plantation it was the custom to kill a steer every two weeks to provide meat for the family and the foremen; the only meat the slaves ever got was the head and entrails. One Sunday, while helping butcher a steer, the hunger of the American slave got the better of him, and he seized some of the entrails and ate them raw. The next day he died and a few weeks later an escaped slave called on the American ambassador in Mexico City, gave him the name and home address of the American, and told him the man had been beaten to death. The ambassador secured the arrest of the planter Fernandez and it cost him a lot of money to get out of jail,"

Our trip was a very beautiful one, if very rough. At one point we climbed along the precipitous side of a magnificent mountain, allowing our horses to pick their way over the rocks behind us. At another we waited while the slaves took off their clothing, piled them in bundles on their heads and waded across a creek; then we followed on our horses. At many points I yearned mightily for a camera, yet I knew if I had it that it would get me into trouble.

Picture merely that procession as it wound in single file around the side of a hill, the tropical green above broken now and then by a ridge of gigantic grey rocks, below a level meadow and a little farther on the curving,