Nov. I, 1893.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
335 
COCONUT PLANTING IN OUR EAST COAST. 
WHAT COC3NOT3 C DO IN SANDY SOIL IN IHE 
BATTICALOA DISTKICT. 
We are indebted to a oorrespondent for a Bplendid 
specimeu of coconut (brought to us through the 
good otii'jes of Capt. Whitley of the " Lady 
Goriloo") grown upon a young estate belonging 
to Mr. E. N. Aiherton. lu is certainly a big 
nut, weighing 6^ lb., and shews what Batticaloa can 
grow on sandy soil and from a ten-year old tree 1 
This is one from Buverwi hundred picked of the 
same s z^. '' There were larger ones " — writes our 
corre spoadent — " but this was a better shaped one, 
and I thought you would like to sea it. It measures 
31 iuohes round. Ihe larger ones measuring 36 ! 
The natives have gone in very largely for coco- 
nuts, and every acre has been readily purchased 
for Its cultivation and they seem more keen on 
it than ever. When Mr. E. N. Atherton 
opened this estate on the Trincomalee Koad 
(12i,h mill), Govtruor Longden inquired from Mr. 
Worthington, Acting G. A., what fool intends 
growing cocoauts on such soil ? ! The result as 
you perceive is the ' fool'a ' nut 1 1 " 
IN THE HEART OF THE RUBBER LAND. 
A Special correspondent of the Washington 
Kveniwj tStar, Fannie a. Ward, has been traversing 
the regions where the rubber tree flourishes, and 
we gladly reproduce in our columns her interesting 
narrative, which is as follows ;— 
Being in any of these Amazonian towns, where 
everything reeks of India-rubber — where it is the 
one engrossing industry of the people, the one topic 
of conversation, the one thing constantly seen, 
smelled and tasted— you are sure to be seized by 
the spirit of discovery sooner or later and a burning 
desire to turn hunter yourself and become a habitante, 
if for ever so brief a period, of a genuine rubber 
camp in the wilderness. And nothing is easier than 
to gratify that lauaable ambition especially if you 
are "taken ' with it at Manaos, a thousand miles 
up the mighty river, in the heart of the greatest 
rubber-produomg section of the globe. 
OFF FOR A KUBBEll CAMP. 
In our case it was particularly easy, for our host 
is a rubber merchant ^as are moat of tue substantial 
citizens of the place ), wiao keeps from 50 to 100 
Indians constantly employed as collectors, under 
tlie leadership of a " captain ' or head collector of 
their own choosing. It nappens that their present 
main camp may be reached without difdculty by 
a two days' Journey up the liio Negro on one of 
the regular steamers, and then, disembarking at a 
certain point in the wilderness, near the mouth of 
an unnamed ahlueut, by a slower canoe cruise of 
several hours, between jungle-covered banks, where 
apparently human beings never came before. 
At the hrst indicaliun of our desire, which had 
evidently been expected and partially prepared for, 
a party was made up, headeu by mine nost and 
hii family, servants were sent ahead with tents 
and provisions, and Indian boatmen summoned from 
the distant camp to meet us at the junction of the 
rivers. To our kind entertainers it was merely a 
pleasant little i;icnic excursion, such as New Yorkers 
are wont to make up the Hudson ; but to us it was 
an event of maguuudc, fraught with perils and 
adventures enough to keep the average i'ankeo of 
either sc.\ in yarning material for a liletime. Think 
of it; the Amazon river measures more miles 
straight across its uiouth tlian the whole navigable 
length of the "lordly Hudson. ' 
l.N XUJi FOltEST. 
And then suppose those Indian boatmen should 
fail to be on hand at the appointed time and place 
and we be left, like the i>abes iu the Woods, 
among boaa and tigers and goodness knows what 
other terrors ? And later — when being paddled up 
the nameless igarape, which is hundreds of miles 
from anywhere, and so narrow a stream that the 
dense wall of vegetation towering upon both sides 
keeps it in perpetual twilight, and the absolute 
silence of the primeval solitude is mournfully oppres- 
live — suppose the half- savage guides, who certainly 
look capable of any atrocity, should conclude it 
were batter paying business to rob and mm-der 
their charges, what in the world was th re to 
prevent them ? We thought of the harrowing ex- 
periences of Madame Godin des Odonais in these 
same wilds (of which I must tell you anon), and 
of the thousands of explorers, whose hearts were 
fired with missionary zeal, or love of nature, or 
search for the fabled El Dorado, or greed of gold 
and conquest, who have perished miserably here 
— and there is none to tell their story. We re- 
membered Capt. Mayne Eeid's tree-dwelling savages 
who delight to puncture Amazonian travellers with 
poisoned aiTOws shot from blow guns ; and the 
monster serpents of the same author, which lie in 
wait upon overhanging branches and swallow them, 
boats and all. But in our expedition it turned out 
that there was on almost disappointing dearth of 
perilous adventure and not a single "hairbreadth 
scape " to chronicle. The Indians we encountered 
despite their unprepossessing appearance, proved 'o 
be the most docile, gentle, and tractable of creatures, 
and probably the aerial savages and man-swallowing 
snakes, disgusted with the increasing frequency of 
human invasion, have retired farther into the 
wilderness. 
THE RUBBER TRADE. 
The following facts, stated briefly as possible, 
are a summary of the information we have picked 
up in Brazil from diverse sources relative to the 
rubber trade. Like other industries in various parts 
of the world, it appears to be controlled by capital 
on the Scriptural plan of "to him that hatn shall be 
given," while the actual toilers are very poorly paid for 
their labour. Hereabouts it is customary for a 
wealthy man to obtain a grant of land, of greater 
or less extent according to his political influence 
and financial powers of persuasion, with the exclusive 
right of gathering rubber thereon for a stated 
number of years. The entire river trade of the 
Amazon is run on the credit system. 
THE RUBBER HUNTERS, 
who are mostly Indians, are fitted out by their 
employers much as American miners used to be 
supplied with "grub stake" in their search for 
precious metals. Each hunter, before he sets forth 
on a fresh journey, is provided with a gun, a 
quantity of ammunition, blanket, hammock, and 
enough provisions to sustain him from two to six 
months, all of which is charged to his account at 
the highest market pr ce, and in return he stipulates 
to sell to this same accommodating dealer, at some 
fixed sum per pound, all the rubber he may collect 
during bis trip, after paying what he owes for the 
outfit. But he seldom gets the debt paid up, and, 
according to the laws of Brazil, as long as he owes 
a penny, the man to whom he is indebted can 
claim him for work, holidays and aU, in a bondage 
akin to slavery. They are engaged, in the first 
place, for a term of years, ana the majority of 
nunters, in consequence of their debts and propensity 
to drink up all available cash iu the form of chicha, 
are practically never released from the contract. 
THE EXCHANGE. 
The employers, iu theu' turn, are bound to be 
in debt to the small traders in the river towns, 
to whom they sell the rubber. They pay absurdly 
high prices for inferior goods and get little for the 
product of the enterprise as compared to the price 
of rubber when it gets out of the clutches ol the 
" middlemen," while those who do nil the actual 
work and endure the risks and hardships got next 
to nothing. The small trader, likewise, is in debt 
to tho wholesale dealer at E'ara, and the wholeaalst 
