cause for exaltation; we were about to go to pass
the rest of our lives in bondage; but all misery is comparative, and
sooner than have remained another night in that dreadful hole, I would
have welcomed any change. About an hour afterwards a guard of
dirty-looking soldiers came in; we were all handcuffed to a long
chain, at about two feet apart, one on each side, so that we walked in
pairs, and as soon as the first chain was full--and I was handcuffed
to it--we were ordered out into the square to wait for the others. My
superior dress and appearance as an Englishman excited much curiosity;
people pointed to me and made remarks, but I had no opportunity of
communicating with any of the authorities, nor would it have been of
any use if I had had. We remained there more than an hour, as the
other chains of prisoners came out one by one; we were five chains in
all, about forty on a chain. We were then ordered to move on, walking
between a guard of about twenty or thirty soldiers, who marched, on
each side of us, with their muskets and bayonets fixed, about three
yards from each other. In another hour we were clear of the town, and
threading our way through a lane bounded on each side by prickly pears
and other shrubs. There was no want of merriment among the party; they
talked and laughed with one another, and the soldiers who guarded
them, and appeared to care little for their fate. As for me, I was
broken-hearted with the disgrace and the villainous manner in which I
had been thus sacrificed. My heart was full of bitterness, and I could
gladly have lain down and died, had I not been still buoyed up with
some faint hope that I should have an opportunity of making my
position known, and obtain my release. I will pass over the journey,
as one day was but the forerunner of the other. We halted at noon, and
were supplied with fruit and maize, but we were never unchained, day
or night. In a short time I was like all the rest--covered with
vermin, and disgusting to myself. It was, I think, between four and
five weeks before we arrived at our destination, which was in the
district of Tejuco, and the locality of the diamond-mines was called
the Sierra de Espinhaco. This sierra, or mountain, was a ridge of
inaccessible precipices on each side of a narrow valley, traversed by
a small river called the Tequetinhonha, and in this valley, and in the
bed of the river, were the diamonds found, for which we were condemned
to toil for the r