This small chapter, a pause between the Goulds' personal and political lives, consists mostly of two flavorful vignettes. In the first, Mrs Gould makes a highly imagistic, evocative journey throughout the Sulaco province on an expedition to find labor for the San Tomé mine. The second provides comic relief in a scene of Charles Gould bribing an overweening local official. Both of these vignettes show the beginnings of the San Tomé mine as a new political power in Costaguana, a state within the state. We are in the Unionist phase of Nostromo's political cycle here; Part Two will take us into the Separatist phase.

Significantly, the vignettes highlight Emily and Charles separately. Although Charles joins the expedition for labor, we are focused entirely on Emily's experience, to the point where Charles' presence is hard to detect. Even within the expedition, the people they talk to and the things they see are completely different. In the bribery scene, Emily plays no part at all. Having committed themselves to the San Tomé ideal in the previous chapter, the hidden rift between their separate ideals is starting to pull them apart.