350 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



Ijri.Y 'i, njio. 



. mm Low iR Amazon. 



It m o \tiaka. of Serf v 



For the first time in the journey our pilot seemed in doubt, 

 and kept the lead going for many hour-.. Then it was the 

 Captain told us stories abi ut. running ashore. It is not particu- 

 larly dangerous when the river is rising, as one is sure to get 

 oft in a few days. He told of one tramp boat that ran aground 

 five times on the journey from Para to Manaos. His own boat 

 was hung up on a mud bank once for 13 days, and right in a 

 mosquito colony at that. Then there was a Booth boat in the 

 upper river that was fast for six months up on the bank where 

 the floods had left it, and was about to be dismantled when a 

 huge section of the river hank caved in, depositing the boat, 

 right side up, far out in the deep water. 



Did I mention that we had some hundreds of crickets aboard, 

 and that thej gave nightly concerts? Like the cockroach they 

 ati 1 1 : handkerchiefs, starched collars, and book bindings, but 

 they were not sordid about it. They did stop to fiddle now and 

 tin u. But the cockroach thinks only of filling his little tin 

 clad belly, and racing across the floor to be stepped on when 

 one is barefooted. 



In tile upper reaches of the river, at least along the banks, 

 there seemed to be few rubber trees. This in spite of the state- 

 ment of the ship's doctor that all of the large ones on the bank 

 were rubber trees — some of the crew had told him so. We did 

 not see the Parintins hills above Obidos, which mark the bound- 

 ary of the states of Para and Amazonas, because the rain blotted 

 out most of the landscape. When it ceased we were close in 

 shore opposite a great ranch where were cattle and horses by 

 the hundred. It was imported stock tco. One huge snow white 

 Indian bull, standing like a statue in white marble, < ccupied the 

 foreground until we passed out of sight. .More and more we 

 saw clayey palisades, riddled \> ith boles like san'l m?rt ; ns' nests. 



their tops draped with blossoming vines, the body of the bluff 

 "inn made up of such brilliant colors that it looked like a 

 petrified rainbow. 



In the little lagoons and eddies were natives fishing, and often- 

 times a turtle hunter, bow and arrow in hand, watching the 

 water for a shot. It was growing warmer all the time, for the 

 breeze was with us, and the smoke of the steamer showed it 

 by drifting upstream a little faster than we could go. 



THE APPROACH TO MANAOS. 



We got to Serpa, or Itacoatiara, which is situated at the junc- 

 tion of (he Madeira, just at nightfall. Here the engineers of 

 the Madeira-Mamore railroad have their headquarters, and the 

 town is healthy, lively, and interesting. Here also is the home of 

 an American named Stone. He has thousands of acres under 

 cultivation and is prosperous, capable and as much an American 

 as he was when he settled here 40 years ago. 



In due time we reached the junction of the Rio Negro and the 

 Amazon, or the Solimoes, as it was now called. The Solimoes, 

 yellow, muddy, swift, comes resistlessly in from the south, and, 

 meeting the slow, densely black flood of the Rio Negro, holds it 

 back, shoulders by it, crowds what does escape downstream to 

 the northern bank, where for a time it shows a narrow ribbon of 

 black water and then disappears. 



Manaos is situated up the Rio Negro, and we therefore turned 

 into that stream. Crossing the water line it was startling to 

 see how plain the demarkation was. On one side a boiling coffee 

 colored flood, on the other a dead black lake. Occasionally an 

 island of coffee colored water appeared boiling and swirling 

 on the inky surface of the Rio Negro, but of blending there 

 seemed to be none. 



[TO BE CONTINUED. I 



RUBBER IMPORTS AT BOSTON. 



Camita, on tiii: Amazon ami Tocantins. 

 [From tlu- first photograph of the landing.] 



IT might naturally be supposed that at a port surrounded 

 *■ by so many important rubber goods factories as Boston the 

 importation of raw material there would reach very considerable 

 volume. This happens, however, not to be the case. During the 

 last complete fiscal year, whereas imports of india-rubber into 

 the United States— exclusive of gutta-percha, halata, Pontianak, 

 and the like — amounted to 88,359,895 pounds, the entries at Bos- 

 ton were enly 324,348 pounds. The India Rubber World's 

 tatistics of rubber imports for the month of May of this year 

 : dicate 1 arrivals at all fi r the port of Boston. This condition, 

 ol Mini's.', iv due t ■' the fact that, while Boston is an important 

 shipping port, in these days when rubber is transported by the 

 shipload the tendency of the rubber bearing ships is to the larger 

 port of New York, whence the rubber required in the territory 

 of which Boston is the capital is sent by land or water, as may 

 be more convenient or economical. 



