144 THE TOCANTIXS. Chap. IV. 



and remained till January or February. The process is 

 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-rubber is 

 known throughout the province only by the name of 

 seringa, the Portuguese word for syiinge ; it owes 

 this appellation to the circumstance that it was in 

 this form only that the first Portuguese settlers noticed 

 it to be employed by the aborigines. It is said that 

 the Indians were first taught to make syringes of rubber 

 by seeing natural tubes formed by it when the spon- 

 taneously-flowing sap gathered round projecting twigs. 

 Brazilians of all classes still use it extensively in the 

 form of syringes, for injections form a gi^eat feature 

 in the popular system of cures; the rubber for this 



* The species I have seen used for this purpose are Maxiniiliana regia ; 

 Attalea excelsa ; and Astrocarjaim niuruniurum. 



