THE MAQUIRITARES' LAND 169 



wife had been sent back to San Fernando. Without hesi- 

 tation one of the peons sang: 



Qui tristeza en nuestro campamento, 



Pobredto Ildefonso estd llorando, 



A earamba, nadie estd alegre, 



Sera porque Maria fue a San Fernando. 



The largest barraca by far which we saw was owned by 

 an old Turk named Parraquete. He received us cordially, 

 shook our hands, and embraced us, apologetically explain- 

 ing that a slight fever prevented his rising from the ham- 

 mock; later we foimd out that he was a leper in the last 

 stages of the disease. He had fifteen Maquiritares in his 

 employ, each of whom collected the latex from several 

 hundred rubber-trees every morning; in the afternoon the 

 milk was smoked, one hundred pounds of the liquid yield- 

 ing about forty or fifty pounds of crude rubber. A species 

 of heavy, deep-red wood called mazarandul was used to pro- 

 duce the dense smoke necessary to coagulate the latex. 

 Hevea only was gathered here, although bahta was also 

 collected farther down the river and on the Guaviare. 

 The governor of the district told me that about fifteen mil- 

 lion trees of the balata had been cut down along the latter 

 river diuing the last ten years, as the method used to 

 secure this class of rubber necessitates felling the trees. 



The proprietors of rubber-camps use the same system of 

 keeping their employees that the commission merchants in 

 Ciudad Bolivar, who are the purchasers of the crude prod- 

 uct, employ in dealing with themselves; namely, they keep 

 them constantly in debt by advancing quantities of mer- 

 chandise at exorbitant prices. It is not unusual for one 

 patrdn to sell some of his men to another for the amoimt of 

 their indebtedness, or more, if he can get it, and sometimes 

 an tmsatisfactory peon is turned loose in the wilderness to 

 shift for himself; we picked up one who had been abandoned 

 on a sand-bank, in a half-starved condition. 



The Cerro Carriche is another granite mass similar to 



