THE TROPICAL AGRKJUl TURIST. [April 2, 1900. 
It must be borne in mind that the area under 
discussion does not include the Kio Beni and the 
region of the plains about it. Tlie rubber that 
comes from tlie Beni is carried away to the east- 
ward, and emerges into the light of commerce as 
Para rubber. It is only tiie forests of tlie lowest 
eastward Cordillera slopes that are comprised in 
the Mollendo district. The rubber trees there are 
stated to be of the Siphonia elastica, a large 
forest tree, approximately as big as an average 
English elm. These trees are self-planted. They 
grow in clumps, or estfridas, of from 100 to 150 
altogether, and these clumps rise well above the 
other forest trees, and can be seen from afar, so 
that the richness of any area can be judged by a 
general oversight from a commanding position. 
In most parts of the woi'ld rubber-producing 
TREES grow in a swamp, a condition which renders 
rubber forests direfuUy inimical to human habit- 
ation. In this respect the Mollendo rubber forest 
is fortunate exception, for by all accounts it is 
not unhealthy ; so, at all 'events, I was informed 
by an Irishman and a German, i^oth of whom had 
spent the best part of from ten to twenty years in 
the forest. There are, of course, unhealthy places, 
but the forest is not generally unhealthy. The 
reason is that the trees do not grow on lavel 
swamps, but. on the sloping sides of deep valleys 
or quehradas. For moisture they depend upon 
the almost constant cloud that hangs over them, 
and is formed by the cold air pouring continually 
down from the adjacent snowy Cordillera. This 
cloud is a geographical feature, and its lower limit 
appears to be the exact boundary of the Mollendo 
rubber forest. The upper boundary is a contour 
line at approximately the 3,000 feet level, abo^ e 
which altitude the tree will not grow. 
The main valleys in the rubber zone are tra- 
versed by navigable rivers. The difficulty of trans- 
port begins at the upper limit of navigation, 
whence the rubber has to be carried bv toilsome 
tracks over ths high passes of the Cordillera. At 
present thc^re are no roads and no mule-paths 
worth mention. There are a few tracks traver- 
sable by mules with difficulty. The best are the 
"Mapiri and Tipuani trails which converge on the 
town of Sorata after surmounting passes of 16,000 
feet altitude. The part of the forest which has 
thus far been best opened out is the area worked 
by these trials. Up to the present, therefore, 
Sorata has been the chief centre of the industry. 
The Challana and Zongo forests will not be pro- 
perly worked till better tracks iiave been made 
over the two passes north and south of Mount 
Condoriri and down the respective valleys. Such 
mule tracks could be easily made at a relatively 
small cost. When that preliminary work is done 
the production of Mollendo rubber will rapidly 
ncrease. 
At present the main impediment to the develop- 
ment of the industry is not the difficulty of carrj - 
ing out the rubber, but of carrying in the neces- 
sary supplies ; for it is important to remember 
that the forest region is practically uninhabited, 
and the amount of cultivation is very small. A 
tropical forest left to itself produces little food for 
man. At one or two points by the river banks, 
where gold-washing is carried on, there are small 
Indian villages ; but the inhabitants are fully 
occupied, and have no time to spare for winning 
the rubber. Both labour and food have therefore 
to be imported from the high Bolivian plateau 
by the same route that the rubber retraces on its 
way to export. 
W e are thus brought to consider the important 
question of lA-Bour. In the department of La Paz 
there are reckoned to be over 300,000 Indians, 
msot of whom inhabit the high plateau region. 
These peo)jle are agricultural labourers who work, 
under a kind of manorial system, for what corres- 
ponds to a very low rate of pay, a starvation wage, 
in fact. They cannot be described as an indus- 
trious folk, but they are extravagant, and thieir 
extravagance of expenditure on festivals' and 
especially ;on festal raiment of a costly and 
gorgeous character, leads them to temporary 
emigrations from home, to which they are also 
frequently driven by dire necessity. They are 
wont under such circumstances to pledge their 
labour in advance, and their extraordinary honesty 
makes the avoidance of their pledge an event 
of extreme raritj'. Employers needing labour 
secure the services of agents who visit Indian 
villa ges, and either directly or through the corre- 
gedors or presidents of the villages, enlist the 
required workmen. Payment is generally made 
in advance, for the Indian has to leave monei' 
with his family and to provide himself with food 
for the time of his absence in the forest. He 
transports the food either on his own back or on 
that of his donkey, and sometimes he takes his 
wife and family v> ith him. He contracts either 
to work for so many days or to bring out 
of the forest so many pounds of rubber. The 
time spent by him on the journey to and fro is 
not paid for. In the case of a mine or other enter- 
prise that has been running for some time, a cer- 
tain number of Indians become habituated to 
working for it, but they generally do so only for 
portions of the year, returning at stated intervals 
to their homes for the purpose of pursuing the cul- 
tivation of their lands. All depends upon how the 
Indians are treated by their employers. If they are 
well treated they will return and bring others with 
them, even without payment in advance, if provi- 
sions are supplied to them at the place of labour. 
The system is not a very satisfactory one, and is 
not capable of indefinite extension, though un- 
doubtedly if the forests were worked on a large 
.scale, and the Indians were well treated and 
punctually paid, a change in their habits might be 
brought al)0ut. It is not, however, probable that 
the forest region could ever be colonised by plateau 
Indians, the dilt'erence of climate and level between 
the two countries being so strongly marked. When- 
ever an organised attempt is made to exploit the 
splendid forests on a large scale, foreign labour 
will have to be imported, and it will be necessary 
to seek Chinese coolies in San Francisco, or Italians 
from Buenos Ayres, or to fetch Hungarians from 
Europe. Such colonists would live in the forests 
and would cultivate the ground as well as work 
the rubber trees. Their labour would be supple- 
mented bj' that of Indians, but a steadier industry 
would be the result. 
THE METHOD OF EXTRACTING RUBBER 
is one of the simplest crafts in the world, 
and can be learnt by the most ignorant 
in no time. The process is as follows : — 
The workman, starting out very early in 
the morning (for when the sun is high the trees 
cease to bleed), carries with him a number of 
little tin cups, called fichelas. Arriving at a tree, 
he makes one or more small incisions in the bark, 
and below each attaches one of the tin cups by 
pressing it into the soft bark. The number of 
incisions that can be made in a tree at one time is 
variously stated. A strip of the bark all down the 
tree, one-third of the circumference in width, must 
be left unbroken, or the tree will be liable to bleed 
to death. The cup, of course, collects the drops of 
sap that bleed from the wound in the bark above 
it. Ultimately the wound in the bark is covered 
by a film of dry sap, which also is afterwards col- 
lected. The workman proceeds from tree to tree, 
attaching his cups, till he has tapped from seventy- 
five to one hundred and fifty trees in \ns estrada, 
according to his industry and the nature of the 
ground. After the hour when the sap ceases to run 
the man goes round again, carrying a tin vessel 
with a cover, into Avhich he pours the milk, that 
has run into the tichelas. When all the tichelas 
have been emptied, the man returns to his barraca. 
Some collectors tap the trees in the morning and 
return to collect the milk in the evening, whilst 
others tap in the evening and collect in the raoru 
