CHAP. XIV 
THE RUBBER TRADE 
515 
coagulated the milk more quickly and effectually 
than smoke from any other kind of fuel. These 
are still used, but the rubber itself is made into a 
more convenient shape and size and in a more 
cleanly manner. 
For this purpose an oval wooden spade is used, 
something like a canoe paddle but with a rather 
longer handle, the surface of which is made quite 
smooth. This is dipped in the bowl of rubber- 
milk, and each layer held over the smoke to dry 
by means of the long handle. This is repeated 
till a large mass is formed nearly twice as large as 
a man's head, and of a subglobular shape some- 
what like that of a Dutch cheese. The paddle is 
removed by slitting the half circumference next the 
handle, when it can be withdrawn and a nearly 
solid mass of clean rubber is left. From four to 
six of these balls is a load for a man. 
During the last fifty years the supply of rubber 
from the Amazon valley has fairly kept pace with 
the demand, so that the price has rarely if ever 
again been so high as in the year Spruce referred 
to. But, owing to the scanty native population of 
these forests, the enormous quantity exported from 
Para of about 30,000 tons annually is only obtained 
by drawing upon an immense extent of country. 
Not only is the whole of the Amazon itself from 
its mouth up to the very roots of the Andes every- 
where full of seringuiros (as the men who extract 
the rubber are called), but all its chief tributaries 
are more or less devoted to the same industry. 
Steamers run regularly up to the town of Iquitos, 
now the centre of the whole rubber trade of the 
great Andean rivers — Ucayali, Huallaga, Napo, 
