530 The Andes and the Amazons. 



average eight pounds a day, worth on the Amazons (when 

 fine) $14 an arroba. The sap has at first the consistency 

 of cream, but soon thickens, and is further hardened and 

 blackened by exposing it to the smoke of burning palm- 

 nuts, usually the Urucuri. Coagulation is necessary also 

 to prevent the separation of the resinous parts. Europeans 

 are now using alum or ammonia and pressure. The rub- 

 ber industry has destroyed agriculture and raised the price 

 of provisions on the River. It is also an unhealthy busi- 

 ness, arising from the swampy nature of the Seringa re- 

 gions and the lack of sufiicient food. The rubber collect- 

 ors {seringueiros) are the most wretched and shamefully- 

 treated class in Amazonia, as the cascarilleiros and miners 

 are on the Andes. They live half the year on the fever- 

 ish, flooded lands, in palm huts with a raised floor at one 

 end, to which they retire at high water, famishing on fari- 

 na and fish, and tormented by clouds of mosquitoes, piiims, 

 and motucas. They are paid in clothing, groceries, and 

 notions at quadruple Para prices, and by the agents put 

 under obligations infuturo^ so that they are really slaves. 

 If one dies under obligation to the agent, his friends can 

 not move away till the debt is paid. Collectors generally 

 are compelled to go for the trees some distance into the 

 forest ; but on the Jurua tliey are visible along the bank. 

 Trees growing on the dry lands yield very little milk. The 

 cultivation of the Rubber-tree has been commenced on the 

 Rio Manh^s. Twenty years after planting, the tree will 

 yield milk. The Amazons caoutchouc (of which 5000 tons 

 are annually exported) is the finest quality yet discovered, 

 being more tensile, and retaining its strength longer than 

 any other ; but it is often adulterated with the milk of the 

 Mangaba {Hancornia s.peciosa)^ called " Pernarabuco rub- 

 ber." It comes into market in "biscuits," "bottles," and 

 " negro heads," or refuse. The Madagascar rubber, do- 



