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and this increase bids fair to be constantly more rapid in 

 the future. 



The Paolistas, hunting for lands, slaves, and mines, 

 were the first native Brazilians who, a hundred years ago, 

 played a great part in opening to settlement vast stretches 

 of wilderness. The rubber hunters have played a similar 

 part during the last few decades. Rubber dazzled them, 

 as gold and diamonds have dazzled other men and driven 

 them forth to wander through the wide waste spaces of 

 the world. Searching for rubber they made highways of 

 rivers the very existence of which was unknown to the 

 governmental authorities, or to any map-makers. Whether 

 they succeeded or failed, they everywhere left behind 

 them settlers, who toiled, married, and brought up chil- 

 dren. Settlement began; the conquest of the wilderness 

 entered on its first stage. 



On the 2Oth we stopped at the first store, where we 

 bought, of course at a high price, sugar and tobacco for 

 the camaradas. In this land of plenty the camaradas over- 

 ate, and sickness was as rife among them as ever. In 

 Cherrie's boat he himself and the steersman were the only 

 men who paddled strongly and continuously. The store- 

 keeper's stock of goods was very low, only what he still had 

 left from that brought in nearly a year before; for the big 

 boats, or batelaos batelons had not yet worked as far 

 up-stream. We expected to meet them somewhere below 

 the next rapids, the Inferno. The trader or rubber-man 

 brings up his year's supply of goods in a batelao, starting 

 in February and reaching the upper course of the river 

 early in May, when the rainy season is over. The par- 

 ties of rubber-explorers are then equipped and provisioned; 



