234 EXPLORING FOR CASTILLOA RUBBER 



But they would not allow the skin to be cut, although they did 

 prop the sufferer up, heels in the air and head to the ground, and 

 watched all night to see the bullet as it rolled out. 



Of the thousands of shell mounds that contain the graves of their 

 ancestors, the natives know little, and cheerfully assist the despoiler 

 to open them and secure such relics or treasure as they may contain. 



The women are quite pretty when young, particularly those who 

 live in the mountains, and have a custom of filing their teeth so that the 

 points are as sharp as needles, said to be most becoming, from an Indian 

 point of view. The mountain men who are physically the best Indian 

 specimens, wear only a shirt and a pair of pants cut off at the knees, 

 and are known in the lowlands as the "short pants/' 



That night in Rio Negro camp it was really cold. The air was 

 damp, and it was raining heavily, although only a little came through 

 the roof. We were sitting about too grumpy to talk until the gray 

 mule took possession of the kitchen, and, in the mix-up that followed, 

 led us to forget our woes. Then the Prospector began to talk about 

 rubber plantations, and my conceit got a shock, for he told me of some 

 that I had never heard of. It was on Gorgonas Island, which lies off 

 the coast of Colombia, owned by the fine old Spaniard, Don Ramon, 

 whom we met in Panama City, where are some five thousand cultivated 

 trees four and one-half years old. The Prospector feared that the 

 revolutionists from the main land might have destroyed some of them 

 in their periodic forays, but was not sure. Then the Pioneer took the 

 floor. He had formerly been manager for the Darien Gold Mining Co., 

 and for them he cleared wide paths through the forest in which to plant 

 Castillo a trees. The planting was in part from seed, and in part of 

 young trees, for which he paid the natives five dollars a hundred, in silver. 

 This was in 1900, and there were some three hundred thousand trees 

 on land some miles from the coast, planted at an altitude of fifteen 

 hundred feet. Since leaving the company, his successor had planted 

 certainly as many more. 



The trips that I have outlined are a few of many, long and short, 

 that taken as a whole gave me a knowledge of the lands as a whole. 

 The final journey was to be along the "hog backs" that extended 

 up to the mountains, then over them and down to the further shore, 

 whence the Almirantc had been despatched to meet and convey us to 

 Panama City. 



First came the preparations, the most important of which was the 

 packing of the camera supplies. Considering the fact that the mule 



