AN AMUSING PLOT 
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 
371 
