September i, 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



415 



deciding upon the location, cr they might be nearer the camp 

 on construction. The company paid the men on the 10th ot 

 every month, and five men were in the employ of the pay office 

 to prepare the $175,000 that the paymaster carried in person to 

 the various camps. 



All of the men were obliged to sign a contract not to meddle 

 with the Carapuna women, or to sell firearms to the men. If this 

 contract was violated they were discharged without pay. The 

 result of this wise policy was that the Indians were very friendly, 

 and furnished the camps with many turtles and lots of fish. 

 The company shipped in beef on its own steamers from Manaos, 

 and furnished such delicacies as Boston baked beans and rice ad 

 libitum. 



SOME LABOR TROUBLES. 



The day laborers were a mixed lot gathered from all parts of 

 the world. An unfortunate experiment on the part of a German 

 contractor took place while I was in Manaos. He brought in 

 600 laborers from Germany, mostly Polish Jews, and agreed to 

 pay them 60 cents per cubic yard for digging dirt. He was to 

 get $1 a yard for it, and pocket the difference. The workmen 

 in a few days after they were located discovered that other 

 gangs were getting $1. They promptly struck and walked 80 

 kilometers back to camp. The camp manager, when lie heard 



as a class, and those who are suited to the life really enjoy it. 



I met two whom I had previously known in Panama. They 

 were on their way to the states for their vacation. One was in 

 perfect health ; the other had chills and fever at regular in- 

 tervals, but was filling up on quinine, and had no thought but 

 to return when his vacation was over. 



They had many interesting and unusual stories to tell of 

 happenings up in the wilderness. One of them told of the pos- 

 sessor of an honored English name who was compelled to drop 

 it and take another. It came about this way. Whenever a 

 companion called him by his surname, it was greeted with shrieks 

 of laughter on the part of the natives. Not only that, but if he 

 met a native on the trail, the latter would speak his name and 

 then go into convulsions of merriment. When he learned that 

 his patronymic was a native word which meant the concrete and 

 ultimate result of a strong cathartic pill, he promptly called 

 himself "Smith." 



EARLY RAILROAD WORK ON THE MADEIRA. 



The story of the earlier efforts to build railroads around the 

 falls of the Madeira is wonderfully interesting and singularly 

 romantic. The first real attempt was made some forty years ago, 

 under a concession to the Bolivian Steam Navigation Co., the con- 



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A Level Stretch of the Madeira. 



the whole story, promised to cancel the contract and give them $1 

 per yard. This they refused. He then offered to put them 

 at work on buildings and other jobs. This they also refused. 

 He then offered them free transportation back to Manaos, but 

 again met stubborn refusal. He was finally forced to disarm 

 them and drive them from camp. They then built rafts and 

 started to float down to Manaos. Many of them died, and the 

 residue were picked up by a river steamer and taken to Manaos 

 and placed in charge of the German consul. As I was leaving, 

 the German government was getting busy with the idea of seeking 

 redress. 



Perhaps the greatest curse in this upper country was insects. 

 There were flies innumerable, together with moyaquils (called 

 "bachoburna" there), chiggers, ticks, and mosquitos by the 

 million. 



The railroad company established wireless stations at Manaos 

 and Porto Velho, which worked perfectly from the start. Later 

 they planned to have another station at Villa Bella, at the 

 farther end of the road. It is quite possible, once these are 

 installed, that the can communicate with Bolivian wireless sta- 

 tions, which would give Manaos another means of sending mes- 

 sages to the outside world. 



The engineers go with the company under contract for a period 

 of two" years, with a three months' vacation, which they usually 

 spend in a trip to the United States. They are very well paid, 



One of the Falls of the Madeira. 



tractors being the Public Works Construction Co., principally 

 backed by English capital, and the actual work being done by 

 P. & T. Collins, an American concern. The whole scheme orig- 

 inated in the enterprise of Colonel George Earl Church, a noted 

 American civil engineer, who proved to both the Bolivian and 

 Brazilian governments the necessity for such a road. 



The Collins company made a survey, sent in much equipment 

 and had laid about five miles of track, when the English bond- 

 holders got frightened, put an injunction on the funds of the 

 company, and after much litigation got the money and the 

 Collins company got nothing. The American loss was some- 

 thing like $500,000. The Brazilian government later put through 

 a new survey, but were not ready to finance the proposition at 

 that time. Then came the Acre dispute and the cession of that 

 rich rubber territory to Brazil, with the agreement that the 

 railroad should be built at once. 



According to common gossip in Brazil, the American engi- 

 neering company who are putting it through agree to have it 

 completed in three years' time. The Brazilian government pays 

 all of the bills and the construction company gets 10 per cent, 

 of the money expended, for its trouble. The road is narrow 

 gage and many of the bridges now of timber construction will 

 be replaced later with solid masonry. 



Except in the towns very few traces of the Collins enterprise 

 remain. The roadbed, rails and all had absolutely disappeared, 



