During our stay in Rio we saw much to interest us. The negro was very much in evidence. Slavery was still the law of the land; all the toil and burden-bearing falls to the poor slave's lot. One day we all three took an early train and alighted at a small hamlet on the border of a stream about thirty miles from Rio, beyond the ranges of mountains that hem in the city. We managed to find some saddle mules and started to see the country. We rode for some miles through a land covered with moundlike hills, no sooner coming to the bottom of one than we were ascending another. These hills are covered with coffee bushes filled with red fruit, about the size of a cherry, each containing two kernels. The coffee was being picked into large flat baskets by slaves, which, when filled, they carried away on their heads to the drying grounds. The roads were bordered with orange trees loaded with luscious fruit, to which we helped ourselves. After a time we turned into a bridle path and rode some miles through a dense forest. We emerged upon the outskirts of a coffee plantation, where the slaves were just on their way to dinner, and another half mile brought us to the planter's residence. Thirty or forty slaves of both sexes and all ages were grouped upon the grass, engaged in eating a black-looking stew out of metal dishes, their fingers serving for knives, forks and spoons. Seeing three horsemen ride out of the forest, they stared in stupid wonder, until one more intelligent than the others went in search of the overseer. Presently a white man appeared, and, in response to Mac's "Parlate Italiano," came the smiling answer, "Si, Signor," proving, as we wagered he would be, a native of beggarly, sunny Italy. The overseer showed us over the place, and explained all the processes of preparing coffee for the market. In one corner of a large, unpainted building was what he called the infirmary, and a comfortless looking place it was. He said there was no doctor employed, and that he dealt out medicine to the slaves himself. After being served with coffee we thanked him for our entertainment and returned to Rio by an evening train. The mail steamer Ebro was advertised to leave Rio for Liverpool on Wednesday of the week following the exciting events narrated in the last chapter. This was the mail that would carry the draft for L10,000 on the London and Westminster Bank, along with a letter from the Rio bank, stating that they had cashed Mr. Gregory Morrison's draft upon the letter issued by them. Twenty-two or three days after the steamer left Rio the London bank would know their correspondents in Rio had been victimized, but 8,000 miles of blue water was between them, with no way to bridge it but by steam; so we had at least forty-four days more to gather in our harvest. I ought to say, apparently forty-four more days, for by an amazing blunder we were about to bring a storm upon our heads.