THE RUBBER FORESTS 29 



people from the plateau and upon the thoroughly willing assist- 

 ance of well-paid forest Indians. The Compania Gomera de 

 Mainique at Puerto Mainique just below the Pongo is one of these 

 and its development of the region without violation of native 

 rights is in the highest degree praiseworthy. In fact the whole 

 conduct of this company is interesting to a geographer, as it 

 reflects at every point the physical nature of the country. 



The government is eager to secure foreign capital, but in east- 

 ern Peru can offer practically nothing more than virgin wealth, 

 that is, land and the natural resources of the land. There are no 

 roads, virtually no trails, no telegraph lines, and in most cases no 

 labor. Since the old Spanish grants ran at right angles to the 

 river so as to give the owners a cross-section of varied resources, 

 the up-river plantations do not extend down into the rubber coun- 

 try. Hence the more heavily forested lower valleys and plains 

 are the property of the state. A man can buy a piece of land 

 down there, but from any tract within ordinary means only a 

 primitive living can be obtained. The pioneers therefore are the 

 rubber men who produce a precious substance that can stand the 

 enormous tax on production and transportation. They do not 

 want the land — only the exclusive right to tap the rubber trees 

 upon it. Thus there has arisen the concession plan whereby a 

 large tract is obtained under conditions of money payment or of 

 improvements that will attract settlers or of a tax on the export. 



The "caucho" or poorer rubber of the Urubamba Valley be- 

 gins at 3,000 feet (915 m.) and the "hevea" or better class is a 

 lower-valley and plains product. The rubber trees thereabouts 

 produce 60 grams (2 ozs.) of dry rubber each week for eight 

 months. After yielding rubber for this length of time a tree is 

 allowed to rest four or five years. "Caucho" is produced from 

 trees that are cut down and ringed with machetes, but it is from 

 fifty to sixty cents cheaper owing to the impurities that get into 

 it. The wood, not the nut, of the Pahna carmona is used for smok- 

 ing or "curing" the rubber. The government had long been 

 urged to build a road into the region in place of the miserable 

 track — absolutely impassable in the wet season — that heretofore 



