Balata and the Balata Industry. 217 
milk, or scraps of balata from the vessels, were found 
lying about on the ground. The milk they conceal in the 
forest, lest, if it were left at the benab, it might be 
appropriated by some brother collector, who might call 
in on his way, in their absence ; for in balata collecting 
the honour reputed to exist among thieves is not, when 
a chance occurs, often exemplified. By following the 
well beaten tracks, I sometimes came on trees fresh 
felled, with their leaves still green, showing that they 
had only been cut a few days before. Had I had the 
time to penetrate the more remote depths, where the 
trees are plentiful, I should have seen, judging from the 
information I gathered in conversation with one and 
another, infinitely more of these depredations. The 
woodcutters acknowledge that a grant could not be 
found on the Canje River over which the trees have not 
been bled, though they say, at the same time, that on 
all such selected land, balata can still be obtained in 
considerable quantity by felling trees, the majority of 
which, hitherto, have only been tapped at the base. 
Where I stopped to breakfast one day, on the confines 
of the bullet-tree region, up near the savannah, I 
measured a tree that happened to be one of the largest I 
saw thus felled. It would have given a log fifty feet 
long and two feet square. Though by the river side, it 
was left, of course, to rot. At the low price of 30c. per 
foot, it was worth $60 ; while the robber who felled it 
probably got only $2 worth of milk from it. The value 
of the timber thus destroyed during the past four years 
must have been enormous. But, as I have shown, the 
damage done to the forest is not confined to felling 
trees. This practice is a fast-growing evil, and unless 
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