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. Originally there had been a
hundred of these unfortunates, but about half had been
sold on the trip. The trader in charge of them rode
a horse and carried a whip with a short handle and a