It was a hindrance, having women with me. They traveled in an ox cart, and at nearly every stream the wheels had to be taken off and a tarpaulin fixed about the body of the wagon to make it into a raftlike float, in which they were ferried across. Had Miss Dalforth--or Alicia, as I heard Mrs. Braymore call her--had Alicia been less charming, or less anxious to cause as little trouble as possible, I would have cursed them nearly the entire time. As it was, I bore the delays with equanimity. They were delighted the first day when we went up the trail to Venghela. I showed them the street lamp at which the great slave trail from the interior ended, and they looked dubious. When I showed them the Padre Silvestre's mission, with its three villages of redeemed slaves, they grew a little bit white and quiet. The padre tried to persuade them not to go on, but as luck would have it, a runner came in on his way to Ticao with a message from Graham. His brother had arrived from the interior. That strengthened their resolution. We continued the journey. While on the trail I could not speak to them, being busily engaged in the supervision of my caravan. At night, however, we conversed. It was good to hear cultivated white women talk again and talk about something besides the slave traffic, the missionary women's sole topic when they find a listener who can be trusted not to repeat their views to the governor. The natives are kidnaped or captured far in the interior, brought down to the coast, and frankly sold. Then they are interviewed and, after making a mark upon a bit of printed paper, are considered to have made a contract to serve a white man for four years at one milreis--about a dollar--a month. To call it slave traffic is highly insulting to the Portuguese, but to call it the _servaçal_ system is inadequate. They are _servaçaes_, or _contrahidos_, which means contract laborers, in theory, but in practice they are slaves. They never see their native villages again. The slave trail from the interior is littered with the manacles used to confine them, and there are gruesome relics all along the way, of those natives who were unable to bear the hardships of the journey. I told them of these things. I told them of how the Padre Silvestre sacrificed his very soul to keep his villagers from being sold again as _servaçaes_, how the blacks rose on Da Vega's plantation and sacked it, and all I knew of the whole disgusting system. I had no intention of making myself a hero--and my conscience still hurts me when I think of some of the things I grew absolutely accustomed to--but I did allow myself to show my feelings on the subject of Portuguese government. Alicia listened, and one night when I had explained to them precisely what it means for a black to be sent to the island of San Felipe or Gomé, she held out her hand to me very gravely. "I think it is very brave of you," she said, "to stay here and do what you can to help the poor blacks."