THE MAQUIRITARES' LAND 163 



any kind; the inhabitants lack all initiative for work and 

 eat tinned foods and mandioc received in exchange for 

 trinkets from the Indians. 



When we returned a few months later a changed town 

 confronted us. The rubber-collectors had returned from 

 their several months isolation in the interior, and were 

 spending the fruits of their labor as rapidly as possible. 

 Dance-halls, gaming-dens, and almost every conceivable 

 device for relieving men of their money had sprung up like 

 mushrooms, and there was drinking and merrymaking day 

 and night. Then suddenly, and without presage, a tragedy 

 occurred; it will never be forgotten by the few who survived. 



Governor Pulido, so it was rumored, had imposed a new 

 tax on all rubber collected in the district, and had come to 

 San Fernando to personally collect the extortion. Natu- 

 rally, there was a good deal of dissatisfaction, and one night, 

 just after we had been provided with a canoe and secretly 

 advised to leave as soon as possible, the storm broke. A 

 band of men, said to be under the leadership of one Colonel 

 Funes, an Indian and the most notorious man in the dis- 

 trict, attacked the town, killed the governor, and practi- 

 cally the entire male population, and rifled the shops and 

 dwellings. If one may believe the tales of the few who 

 escaped the brutalities committed that night, the deeds 

 rival those of the most barbaric ages. 



Perhaps some of those who perished deserved their fate, 

 others assuredly did not; but it is a fact that government 

 offices had been conducted abominably. In the post-office, 

 for example, stamps were sold for twice their face value, 

 and if one did not purchase them there and place them on 

 the letters in full view of the postmaster, the mail was de- 

 stroyed. A physician who chanced to be there, named La 

 Page, and who apparently belonged to the military or- 

 ganization as he wore the regulation uniform, tried to collect 

 over four hundred dollars gold for a few injections of quinine; 

 and so the robbery went on until the whole band was ex- 

 terminated. 



