India-Rubber 29 
always heard him spoken of with gréat esteem both by 
Nicaraguans and foreigners. He showed to me pieces of 
cordage, pottery, and stone implements brought down by 
the rubber men from the wild Indians of the Rio Frio. 
Castillo is one of the centres of the rubber trade. Parties of 
men are here fitted out with canoes and provisions, and 
proceed up the rivers, far into the uninhabited forests of the 
Atlantic slope. They remain for several months away, and 
are expected to bring the rubber they obtain to the merchants 
who have fitted them out, but very many prove faithless, 
and carry off their produce to other towns, where they have 
no difficulty in finding purchasers. Notwithstanding these 
losses, the merchants engaged in the rubber trade have done 
well; its steadily increasing value during the last few years 
having made the business a highly remunerative one. Ac- 
cording to the information supplied to me at Greytown by 
Mr. Paton, the exports of rubber from that port had in- 
creased from 401,475 lbs., valued at 112,413 dollars, in 1867, 
to 754,886 lbs., valued at 226,465 dollars, in 1871. India- 
rubber was well known to the ancient inhabitants of Central 
America. Before the Spanish conquest the Mexicans played 
with balls made from it, and it still bears its Aztec name of 
Ulli, from which the Spaniards call the collectors of it 
Ulleros. It is obtained from quite a different tree, and pre- 
pared in a different manner, from the rubber of the Amazons. 
The latter is taken from the Szphonza elastica, a Euphorbia- 
ceous tree; but in Central America the tree that yields it isa 
species of wild fig (Casiilloa elastica). It is easily known by 
its large leaves, and I saw several whilst ascending the river. 
When the collectors find an untapped one in the forest, they 
first make a ladder out of the lianas or “‘ vejuccos”’ that 
hang from every tree; this they do by tying short pieces of 
wood across them with small lianas, many of which are as 
tough as cord. They then proceed to score the bark, with © 
cuts which extend nearly round the tree like the letter V, the 
point being downwards. A cut like this is made about every 
three feet all the way up the trunk. The milk will all run 
out of a tree in about an hour after it is cut, and is collected 
into a large tin bottle made flat on one side and furnished 
with straps to fix on to a man’s back. A decoction is made 
from a liana (Calonyction speciosum), and this on being added 
