noon
As for me , I was broken-hearted with the disgrace and the villainous manner in which I had been thus sacrificed . My heart was full of bitterness , and I could gladly have lain down and died , had I not been still buoyed up with some faint hope that I should have an opportunity of making my position known , and obtain my release . I will pass over the journey , as one day was but the forerunner of the other . We halted at noon , and were supplied with fruit and maize , but we were never unchained , day or night . In a short time I was like all the rest -- covered with vermin , and disgusting to myself . It was , I think , between four and five weeks before we arrived at our destination , which was in the district of Tejuco , and the locality of the diamond-mines was called the Sierra de Espinhaço . This sierra , or mountain , was a ridge of inaccessible precipices on each side of a narrow valley , traversed by a small river called the Tequetinhonha , and in this valley , and in the bed of the river , were the diamonds found , for which we were condemned to toil for the remainder of our days .