Early in the afternoon we overtook another procession of pilgrims;
but in this one was no merriment, no jokes, no laughter, no playful
ways, nor any happy giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet both
were here, both age and youth; gray old men and women, strong men
and women of middle age, young husbands, young wives, little boys
and girls, and three babies at the breast. Even the children were
smileless; there was not a face among all these half a hundred
people but was cast down, and bore that set expression of hopelessness
which is bred of long and hard trials and old acquaintance with
despair. They were slaves. Chains led from their fettered feet
and their manacled hands to a sole-leather belt about their waists;
and all except the children were also linked together in a file
six feet apart, by a single chain which led from collar to collar
all down the line. They were on foot, and had tramped three
hundred miles in eighteen days, upon the cheapest odds and ends
of food, and stingy rations of that. They had slept in these
chains every night, bundled together like swine. They had upon
their bodies some poor rags, but they could not be said to be
clothed. Their irons had chafed the skin from their ankles and
made sores which were ulcerated and wormy. Their naked feet were
torn, and none walked without a limp.
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