Balata and the Balata Industry. 191 
spite of their very cumbersome impedimenta, they thread 
their way through the thick forest when the ground is at all 
fairly good for walking. The axe is required for felling 
trees, and the cutlass for making the channels in the 
bark by which the milk is obtained. The cutlass is a 
large instrument twenty-two inches long, curved and 
rather wider at the outer end, where it is about three 
inches deep. The axe is the ordinary American kind used 
by woodcutters. The goobees are natural bottles, the size 
and shape of an ox bladder, holding from one to two gal- 
lons each. They are produced by a gourd — Lagenaria 
vulgaris — which grows in the sand at most Indian settle- 
ments, much like pumpkin vine. A hole is cut, about 
two inches in diameter, near the scar where the stem 
was connected to the fruit, and the contents of seed and 
pith scraped out by inserting and twisting a piece of 
stick or other sharp instrument. This leaves a strong 
hard shell which, for its protection and as means to affix 
a handle, is then laced in an open network of mamourie 
— the split stem of a climbing Carludovica — to which 
a rather long looped handle of the same material is 
attached that enables it to be carried over the shoulder 
of the collector. On the return journey they are balanced 
by being hung before and behind, usually two each way, 
and the rapid traveller has to be careful that he does not 
slip, make a false step into one of the coquerite pitfalls, 
or trip into collision with a tree, for they are easily 
cracked bv a blow thus given, and the milk at once 
escapes. When filled, the orifice is stopped by a cork 
cut from the bullet-tree bark, round the edges of which 
clay is rubbed to prevent any leakage by jolting on the 
way. The calabash — Cresente cujete — basins are pre- 
