72 THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETA. Cuap. IV. 
Baia6d, we took our last farewell of the limpid waters and varied scenery 
of the upper river, and found ourselves again in the humid flat region 
of the Amazons valley. We sailed down this lower part of the river by 
a different channel from the one we travelled along in ascending, and 
frequently went ashore on the low islands in mid-river. As already 
stated, these are covered with water in the wet season ; but at this time, 
there having been three months of fine weather, they were dry through- 
out, and, by the subsidence of the waters, placed four or five feet 
above the level of the river. They are covered with a most luxuriant 
forest, comprising a large number of india-rubber trees. We found 
several people encamped here, who were engaged in collecting and 
preparing the rubber, and thus had an opportunity of observing the 
process. 
The tree which yields this valuable sap is the Siphonia elastica, a 
member of the Euphorbiaceous order ; it belongs, therefore, to a group 
of plants quite different from that which furnishes the caoutchouc of 
the East Indies and Africa. This latter is the product of different 
species of Ficus, and is considered, I believe, in commerce an inferior 
article to the india-rubber of Para. ‘The Siphonia elastica grows only 
on the lowlands in the Amazons region ; hitherto the rubber has been 
collected chiefly in the islands and swampy parts of the mainland 
within a distance of fifty toa hundred miles to the west of Para; but 
there are plenty of untapped trees still growing in the wilds of the 
Tapajos, Madeira, Jurud, and Jauarf, as far as 1800 miles from the 
Atlantic coast. The tree is not remarkable in appearance ; in bark and 
foliage it is not unlike the European ash ; but the trunk, like that of all 
forest trees, shoots up to an immense height before throwing off branches. 
The trees seem to be no man’s property hereabout. The people we 
met with told us they came every year to collect rubber on these 
islands, as soon as the waters had subsided—namely, in August, and 
remained till January or February. The processis very simple. Every 
morning each person, man or woman, to whom is allotted a certain 
number of trees, goes the round of the whole, and collects in a large 
vessel the milky sap which trickles from gashes made in the bark on 
the preceding evening, and which is received in little clay cups, or in 
ampullaria shells stuck beneath the wounds. The sap, which at first is 
of the consistence of cream, soon thickens; the collectors are provided 
with a great number of wooden moulds of the shape in which the 
rubber is wanted, and when they return to the camp they dip them into 
the liquid, laying on, in the course of several days, one coat after 
another. When this is done, the substance is white and hard; the 
proper colour and consistency are given by passing it repeatedly 
through a thick black smoke obtained by burning the nuts of certain 
palm trees,* after which process the article is ready for sale. India- 
ribber is known throughout the province only by the name of seringa, 
the Portuguese word for syringe ; it owes this appellation to the circum- 
stance that it was in this form only that the first Portuguese settlers 
* The species I have seen used for this purpose are Maximiliana regia; Attalea 
excelsa ; and Astrocaryum murumurum. 
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