BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

CHAPTER V
IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH
1 visited Valle Nacional in the latter part of 1908,
spending a week in the region and stopping at all the
larger plantations. I passed three nights at various plantation
houses and four more at one or another of the
towns. As in Yucatan, I visited the country in the guise
of a probable purchaser of plantations.
As in Yucatan, I succeeded in convincing authorities
and planters that I had several million dollars behind me
just aching to be invested. Consequently, I put them
as completely off their guard as it would be possible
to do. As in Yucatan. I was able to secure my information,
not only from what I saw of and heard from the
slaves, but from the mouths of the masters themselves.
Indeed, I was more fortunate than I was in Yucatan.
I chummed with l)0SSes and police so successfully that
they never once became suspicious, and for months sonic
of them were doubtless looking for me to drop in any
fine day with a few million in my pocket, prepared to
buy them out at double the value of their property.
The nearer we approached Valle Nacional the greater
horror of the place we found among the people.
None had been there. but all had heard rumors, some
had seen survivors, and the sight of those walking corpses
had confirmed the rumors. As we got off the train at
Cordoba, we saw crossing the platform a procession of
fourteen men, two in front and two behind with rifles,
ten with their arms bound behind them with ropes, their
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