rate; but it was
always easy for the masters to keep the men in debt.

It must be said for the masters that their slaves were not in any way
ill-treated; on the contrary--except that a man was seldom given the
slightest chance of redeeming himself--they were indeed treated as well
as circumstances permitted. Labour, it must be remembered, was so scarce
and valuable--it was almost an impossibility to obtain labour in Central
Brazil--that it was the care of the master not to lose a labourer.

Much is to be said for the honour of even the worst types of Brazilians.
Although many of them would not think twice of murdering or robbing a
stranger of all he possessed, they were seldom known to defraud their
owners by escaping. A man who ran away from his owner was looked down
upon by the entire community. Again, it must be stated that the chances
of escape, in those distant regions, were indeed very remote. An escaped
slave with no money could not go very far and he would soon die of
starvation.

I must confess that, although I tried hard to discover a way by which
labour could be obtained and retained in Brazil with the existing laws, I
could not find one practicable except that used by the Brazilians, viz.
slavery.

The people of Diamantino tried hard to induce one or two men to accompany
me--and I was willing to buy them out and eventually would have set them
free altogether at the end of the expedition--but they were all so
terrified of the Indians if they left the "city" that they preferred to
remain slaves.

Alcides had gone round to look for a barber. There was only one in
Diamantino, and he was in prison for the murder of his wife, or for some
other such trifling matter. Armed with a pair of my scissors, Alcides
went to the prison to have his hair cut. Once there he took the
opportunity to explain to the prisoner that it could be arranged to
procure his escape if he were willing to join the expedition. The
barber--who had not inquired which way we should be travelling--jumped at
the idea. This necessitated having my hair cut too--rather a trial with
scissors that did not cut--in order to arrange matters further in detail.
With a special permission from the local authorities the barber was let
out accompanied by two policemen--the only two in the place--in order
that he might reduce my hair by half its length or more.

While I underwent actual torture in having my hair clipped--as the
prisoner's hands were trembl