1896.] on Cable Laying on the Amazon Biver, 225 



turning waters) close to the sources of some of the affluents of the 

 Paraguay river. In the rainy season all these waters mix, and it is 

 possible to pass in a boat from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata in 

 35^ S. lat. to the mouth of the Orinoco in 10° N. lat., by way of the 

 Paraguay, the Tapajos, the Amazon, the Rio Negro and the Cassequiare, 

 which forms a connecting link between the Amazon system and the 

 Orinoco. 



From Santarem a branch cable is laid to Alemquer, and Obidos, 

 the next station on the main line, is the last point touched in the State of 

 Para. It would not be right to leave unnoticed the rubber-gathering 

 industry, which is at once the wealth and the bane of this part of the 

 world. The implements in use are of the most primitive kind, as may 

 be judged by the samples on the table, but the average earnings can 

 easily be three pounds per day during the dry season, and the facility 

 of earning so much money with little exertion makes the inhabitants 

 unwilling to engage in more arduous labour. A narrow path leads 

 from the hut on the water's edge into the forest, from one rubber tree 

 to another, the path eventually returning to the hut. The trees are 

 cut on the morning round and the rubber is gathered in the afternoon. 

 As soon as it arrives at the hut, a fire of oily palm nuts (Attalea 

 Excelsa) is lighted and the thin sap thickened in the smoke. For this 

 purpose a paddle is used, on to which the sap is poured with a small 

 earthenware or tin vessel. The smoke soon thickens it and a new 

 layer is poured on, until the well-known flat cakes of india-rubber 

 have been formed. Owing to the rise of the river during the rainy 

 season, most of the huts have to be abandoned, and it can easily be 

 imagined how comfortless they are. Nearly all of them are built on 

 piles, and most of them are thatched with palm leaves. There is 

 hardly any attempt made to cultivate the soil, such as it is, but every- 

 thing is imported. The ss. " Cametense " in which the surveying 

 party went out, was laden with cabbages, onions and potatoes, part of 

 which went as far as Iquitos in Peru. Chiefly owing to this want of 

 provisions, and to the generally careless mode of life, the mortality 

 among india-rubber gatherers is very great. There are two stations 

 in the State of Amazonas — Parintins, formerly called Villa Bella da 

 Imperatriz, and Itacoatiara, formerly Serpa. Just before reaching 

 the former station the Serra de Parintins is passed, which forms the 

 boundary between the two States. At Parintins the river makes a 

 sudden bend, and the resulting eddy current greatly impeded the 

 work ; at Itacoatiara, on the other hand, the bow of the ship was run 

 ashore, and the end of the cable landed direct from the ship. 



Before showing views of Manaos three pictures of the vegetation 

 taken at a short range will be thrown on the screen to illustrate the 

 luxuriance met with everywhere on the journey, but no attempt will 

 be made to describe it, as that has been done to perfection in the 

 classical works of Bates and Wallace. Everything they have said 

 in this respect remains as true as it was forty years ago, and hardly 



Vol. XV. (No. 90.) Q 



