THE HISTORY OF RUBBER 13 



made off their own bat, and at quite as early a period 

 as the natives of Haiti and of Mexico separately and 

 independently discovered the rubber-trees in their own 

 homelands. 



I will now give you some further proofs that there 

 is more truth than fiction in the story I told you. 



Come with me into the Brazilian forests this very 

 day. The scenery, you find, is so wildly beautiful 

 that words cannot possibly do i* justice, much less 

 exaggerate its delights ; in spite of the coming of the 

 European, and the annual invasion by hundreds of 

 rubber gatherers, few changes have been made in 

 the name of Progress within these forests ; so in 

 the days before the white man knew of their exist- 

 ence they must have looked very much the same 

 as they do now. And the pure-bred Brazilian native 

 has not been entirely wiped off the face of his home- 

 land. You may still come across some of the aborigines, 

 and they still scorn clothes, adorn themselves with 

 feathers and beads, carry a blowpipe, hunt their meat, 

 and trap their fish. 



As we start off along a track that has little or no 

 more claim to be called a path than had the Indian 

 trail in my story, I point out to you a specimen of 

 the rubber-yielding tree that is a native of these forests. 

 Very soon you notice for yourselves that there are 

 numbers of these trees in the district. Were you a 

 son of these wilds, wholly dependent on your surround- 

 ings for anything and everything in the way of supplies, 

 would you not try to find out whether this tree cannot 

 be made to provide you with something to eat or drink 

 or play with ? 



Take out your penknife, and cut into the bark of one 



