62 RUBBER 



Para rubber-tree ; and the more anxiously as I knew 

 the season for the ripening of the seed on the trees 

 in the forest to be drawing near. 



" Then occurred one of those chances such as a man 

 has to take at top-tide or lose for ever. 



" The startling news came down the river that our 

 fine ship, the Amazonas, had been abandoned, and left 

 on the captain's hands, after having been stripped by 

 the two gentlemen supercargoes (our late hospitable 

 entertainers !), and that without so much as a stick 

 of cargo for return voyage to Liverpool. I determined 

 to plunge for it. It seemed to present an occasion 

 either ' to make my spoon or to spoil the horn.' It 

 was true I had no cash on hand out there, and to realize 

 on an incipient plantation, in such a place and situa- 

 tion, was quite out of the question. The seed was even 

 then beginning to ripen on the trees in the Monte alto — 

 the high forest. I knew that Captain Murray must 

 be in a fix, so I wrote to him, boldly chartering the ship 

 on behalf of the Government of India ; and I appointed 

 to meet him at the junction of the Tapajos and Amazon 

 Rivers by a certain date. 



" There was no time to lose. Hurriedly getting an 

 Indian canoe, posting up the right coast of the Tapajos, 

 and traversing the broad river — rather ticklish work 

 in a small canoe at that season — I struck back from 

 the left shore for the deep woods, the Monte alto, 

 wherein I knew were to be found the big, full-grown 

 Hevea trees. . . . 



" Working with as many Tapiiyo Indians as I could 

 get together at short notice, I daily ranged the forest, 

 and packed on our backs in Indian pannier baskets as 

 heavy loads of seeds as we could march down under. 



