Sept, i, 1897.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
153 
OUT WITH THE INDIA-RUBBER 
GATHERERS. 
INDIA-RUBBER : ITS COLLECTION AND CULTIVATION 
IN NICARAGUA. 
By Rowland W. Cater. 
At or near the mouth of all the large rivers on the 
Mosquito Coast will be found the bungalow of a trader, 
generally English or American, fitted up as a shop, 
and stocked with cloth, tinned and other provisions, 
rope, tobacco, runa, gunpowder, and similar necessaries. 
When the unsophisticated Indian from the interior 
has collected a canoe-load of Jungle-produce, such as 
rubber, vanilla beans, sarsaparilla, herons’ feathers, 
gold, deer, Jaguar, and puma skins, &c., he pays a 
visit to the trader, and an exchange of commodities 
is promptly effected. Hard cash plays a very small 
part in these transactions. In due course the merchant 
ships the produce to New York or London, reaping 
a profit of — I am almost afraid to say ho v much 
per cent. — two or three hundred perhaps. At any 
rate the trader speedily makes a fortune large enough 
to recompense him for his banishment from some 
more civilised country. 
Many of these merchants are large employers of 
labour in the shape of mahogany cutters and rubber 
collectors. The men, Indians and Caribs mostly, bind 
themselves to a patron for a certain period and 
become practically serfs. The laws regulating these 
‘ mozos matriculados,’ as they are called, are very 
severe and strictly enforced. The patron or master 
supplies provisions, implements and perhaps a small 
sum of money in advance, and each mozo is constrained 
to be diligent, and to return with the fruits of his 
labour at the expiration of the term. Rubber gather- 
ers (huletos) are obliged to deliver one half of their 
caucho to their employer and to sell him the re- 
mainder at the current market price, less the value 
of the provisions, &c., previously advanced. But the 
patron almost invariably keeps a shop. He does not 
pay for the huleros’ share of the rubber in cash, but 
mostly in goods. Consequently all the evils of the 
truck system are rampant. 
A large proportion of the rubber exported from 
Nicaragua comes from the Prinzapulca district. At 
the mouth of the Prinzapulca River — called Apulca 
in some maps — there is a village where scarcely 
a week passes without the arrival or departure of 
huleros, and there I found myself during my travels 
on the Mosquito Coast. My host was one of the 
principal traders, an American, whom I will call 
Hayes. In his employ were many rubber collectors, 
so that I experienced no difficulty in making arrange- 
ments to accompany a gang into the interior. This 
comprised six men, four Mosquito Indians of pure 
blood and two Caribs of negro type. 
We started at daybreak in the usual frail dug-out, 
and at nine o'clock the following morning reached 
the point from which the huleros intended to take 
to the woods. Disembarking, we concealed the canoe 
in a sedge thicket, and after a meal of boiled rice 
and salmon, set out across a sandy plain in the 
direction of a coneshaped hill. .lose, one of the 
Caribs, informed me that the rubber trees are usually 
found in groups of twenty or thirty, and that he had 
often tiavelled for days together without discovering 
a single one. 
‘ Dis tilin', sah,’ he added, ‘ we go straight to big 
lot. See dem long time ago.’ 
But Josd was unaware of what the elements had 
in store for us. A belt of forest intervened between 
the plain and the hill which was our landmark. 
I noticed pine trees, cedar, oak, and mahogany, 
interspersed with wild cherries and cacao, oeibas, 
or silk-cotton trees, and here and there a guayava, 
not unlike an apple tree, but with more foliage. 
This is the white guava, from tbe fruit of which the 
famous jelly is made. It grows to a height of twenty 
feet, and is to be found in many dry jungles as 
well as in almost every garden or patio. The apple- 
shaped fruit is a little larger than a hen’s egg, 
smooth, and somewhat resembling a small lemon 
when ripe. Inside is an aromatic pulp full of small 
white seeds. The red guava of the West Indies is 
more acid and less agreeable. 
We had cut our way through some miles of this 
forest, and had just reached a part where the 
undergrowth and creepers were less dense, when one 
of the Indians stopped suddenly and uttered an ex- 
clamation. A peculiar sound, between a moan and 
a sigh, was creeping through ihe woods ; the tops 
of the trees were in motion 
‘ Huracan, senor !’ shouted the Indian in a tone 
of alarm, and all set off running as fast as they 
could. 
I followed, buffeted by branches and climbing 
plants, and torn by thorns at every step. It was 
a desperate race to get into the open and out of 
danger before the dreaded hurricane should over- 
take us. In speed I was no match for those practised 
woodmen. They left me behind. The forest swailowed 
them up. But I could hear their shouts and the 
crashing of bushes as they tore their way, and 1 
struggled on until I could run no longer. In a 
cleft of a big rock on the outskirts of the wood 
I crouched and waited for the storm to pass. 
It came quickly. The murmur swelled -to a roar. 
The sky grew black almost as night. Branches 
and twigs fell in showers. Great trees bent and 
swayed as reeds, groaning like giants in torture. 
Soon crash followed swiftly on crash as the oider 
monarchs of the forest were swept down. Some 
stripped of every branch, defied the fearful blast’ 
comparatively sale in their nakedness. Others were 
torn up entire, and carried yards away from the 
great pit their roots had left behind. But while 
the tornado raged, even if I had dared to look out 
from my place of refuge, it would have been im- 
possible to distinguish anything, except perhaps 
when a flash of lightning revealed the hurtling mass 
of leaves and branches overhead and all ai-ound. 
As suddenly almost as it came, the hurricane 
swept onward and passed, followed in its course 
by myriads of twigs and small boughs, drawn for- 
ward it seemed by suction. For long afterwards 
these floated in the direction taken by the storm 
resting apparently on the thick cloud of dust which 
seemed to reach from the ground to the tops of 
those trees that had withstood the storm. 
No hurricane so terrific had visited Central 
America for many years, but luckily it was confined 
to the coast. Adjectives are of small use to describe 
its effects. These provided the Indians with a topic 
of conversation for months, and very marvellous 
were some of their stories. 
An old irrrii walking beside a river was said to 
have been lifted up and deposited on the opposite 
bank. An Indian who bad lost his horse discovered 
it in the fork of a tree thirty feet from the ground 
and was compelled to fell the tree to recover it! 
Whether it remained sound in wind and limb the 
more or less veracious chronicler omitted to state 
Another found in his garden a row of banana trees 
which he had not possessed before. Great was the 
mystery until the owner of an hacienda many miles 
away identified them as his property. Some of the 
tales might be true — Quien sabe? Nobody is oblio-ed 
to believe them. But I can testify that the hurricane 
was a very bad one, as also do the many wrecks 
remaining to this day on the beach near the month 
of the Prinzapulca and other rivers. 
Pushing on over the debiis, I eventually reached 
the hill, and tliere found the huleros, who had 
sheltered in a cave with which they were acquainted. 
From the hill top the keen-sighted fellows marked 
down several clumps of rubber trees not in ihe 
track of the hurricane and set out in couples to lan 
them. I accompanied Jose' and Pete, the Caribs 
both of whom spoke English after a fashion of their 
own. 
Here I should observe that the best and purest 
rubber comes from the great forests intersected by 
the Amazon and its many branches. It is known 
