RUBBER PLANTATIONS 247 



earth, various rubber-producing vines had been 

 planted at intervals of about 15 feet. Altogether 

 there were about 100,000 plants growing at the 

 time of our visit, and they seemed to be making 

 good progress, though it was as yet too early 

 to judge which kind of vine was likely to be 

 most profitable. Rubber plantations have been 

 started in several places in the State, and with 

 proper management they ought to take the place of 

 the indiscriminately collected forest rubber. Work- 

 ing in these gardens is the kind of work that 

 the natives really like. At Sendwe there were 

 300 labourers, the full number authorized by the 

 State, about half men and half women. They are 

 paid very fairly, and there were constant applica- 

 tions every day from people asking for employment 

 at the gardens. 



The official in charge of the gardens at Sendwe 

 was a painful example of the ill-effects of long 

 residence alone in the tropics. He was an Italian- 

 Greek of an artistic temper, and he knew almost 

 every note of every modern Italian opera ; but after 

 two years of solitude his uncongenial surroundings 

 had so worked upon his mind, that he firmly believed 

 that all his neighbours were cannibals and that there 

 was a leopard behind every bush. He could hardly 

 be persuaded to move a yard from his house, and 

 when he did he carried a revolver in his pocket, and 

 was accompanied by five men armed with rifles, 

 as well as by his ' boys ' and his cook ! It was like 



