30 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



constituted the sole means of exit. About ten years ago Senor 

 Bobledo at last built a government trail from Eosalina to Yavero 

 about 100 miles long. While it is a wretched trail it is better than 

 the old one, for it is more direct and it is better drained. In the 

 wet season parts of it are turned into rivers and lakes, but it is 

 probably the best that could be done with the small grant of twenty 

 thousand dollars. 



With at least an improvement in the trail it became possible 

 for a rubber company to induce cargadores or packers to trans- 

 port merchandise and rubber and to have a fair chance of success. 

 Whereupon a rubber company was organized which obtained a con- 

 cession of 28,000 hectares (69,188 acres) of land on condition that 

 the company finish a road one and one-half meters wide to the 

 Pongo, connecting with the road which the government had ex- 

 tended to Yavero. The land given in payment was not continuous 

 but was selected in lots by the company in such a way as to secure 

 the best rubber trees over an area several times the size of the 

 concession. The road was finished by William Tell after four 

 years' work at a cost of about seventy-five thousand dollars. The 

 last part of it was blasted out of slate and limestone and in 1912 

 the first pack train entered Puerto Mainique. 



The first rubber was taken out in November, 1910, and produc- 

 tive possibilities proved by the collection of 9,000 kilos (19,841 

 pounds) in eight months. 



If a main road were the chief problem of the rubber company 

 the business would soon be on a paying basis, but for every mile 

 of road there must be cut several miles of narrow trail (Fig. 14), 

 as the rubber trees grow scattered about — a clump of a half dozen 

 here and five hundred feet farther on another clump and only scat- 

 tered individuals between. Furthermore, about twenty-five years 

 ago rubber men from the Ucayali came up here in launches and 

 canoes and cut down large numbers of trees within reach of the 

 water courses and by ringing the trunks every few feet with 

 machetes "bled" them rapidly and thus covered a large territory 

 in a short time, and made huge sums of money when the price of 

 rubber was high. Only a few of the small trees that were left 



