18 RUBBER 



about anything. For days we have been travelling in 

 a region that is far removed from the buvsy haunts of 

 man, and we have grown quite used to the solitude of 

 the wilds ; but the loneliness comes home to us much 

 more forcibl}^ as we realize that there are civilized folk 

 who spend nearly all their life in these out-of-the-way 

 parts. 



We set out to walk along a rough road that threads 

 its way through the jungle. Before long we notice 

 buildings ahead. We are close upon a " seringal " — 

 that is to say, a village which serves as the head- 

 quarters of a number of rubber-gatherers, who work 

 a big area of neighbouring forest-lands. 



The seringal, together with the stretch of country 

 which it serves, belongs to a man who probably lives 

 far away in one of the two great commercial centres of 

 Brazil — Para, at the mouth of the Amazon ; or Manaos, 

 about a thousand miles up the river. The owner may 

 have inherited his claim to proprietorship, or he may 

 have bought it from some other man ; in any case, the 

 tract of forest which is now regarded as his private prop- 

 erty originally became one man's land because in days 

 gone by some settler tried to make a living out of 

 rubber collecting, went so far this way, so far that in 

 his search for rubber-trees, and gradually came to look 

 upon the district between such self-appointed bound- 

 aries as his own personal hunting-ground. 



Great care has to be taken in choosing the site for 

 a seringal. Since none of the forests have yet been 

 opened up for more than about a mile in the inland 

 direction, the seringals must all be built near the 

 riverside ; it is very necessary that they should be 

 perched on some piece of rising ground, because the 



