DIFFERENT KINDS OF WILD RUBBER 83 



The milk which runs out from these cuts is caught in 

 little bowls. These are either fashioned from leaves, 

 which are folded and sewn together, or they are made 

 from seed-pods — in which case they are called " cala- 

 bashes " — in the very simple way that you can easily 

 make a cocoanut-shell do duty for a basin or a cup. 



The contents of the bowls are poured into a hole in 

 the ground or a scooped-out hollow in the trunk of a 

 fallen tree, and the milk is coagulated with the help of 

 soap, lime, or potash. After a few days the lumps of 

 caucho are pressed together into square blocks, the 

 market name for which is " Peruvian Slab." 



Some of the milk sticks in the cuts and becomes 

 coagulated through exposure to the air. About a 

 fortnight after a tree has been felled the congealed 

 caucho is picked out of the wounds. It comes away 

 in stringlike strips, which are wound into balls. 

 Some of these caucho balls are very roughly made ; 

 others are put together in a most pleasing way — the 

 narrow golden strips are prettily interlaced the while 

 they are being wound into a compact, round bundle ; 

 in its finished state the ball looks as if it had been 

 fashioned from strips of bamboo by the patient, skilful 

 hands of a Japanese toymaker. 



CHAPTER VIII 



DITFERENT KINDS OF WILD RUBBER — Continued 



Beyond the Amazon Valley, the chief wild-rubber 

 producing countries in the New World are Central 

 America and Mexico. Both are homelands of the 



5 



