A GERMAN SLAVE 
I was terribly upset to see a European in such a 
position, and, what was worse, I was not in a position to 
help. Nor indeed was help asked for or wanted. The 
old fellow bore the burden bravely, and said he had never 
been happier in his life. Supposing he were made to re¬ 
turn to his own country -— from which he had been absent 
so many years — he philosophically argued, what could 
he be, with no money and no friends, but a most unhappy 
man? All his relatives and friends must have died; the 
habits he had acquired in the wilds were not suitable for 
European cities; he was too old to change them. The 
German was an extraordinarily fine type of man, hon¬ 
est, straightforward, brave. He spoke in the kindest 
and fairest way of his master. He had sold himself be¬ 
cause of necessity. It was now a matter of honour, and 
he would remain a slave until it was possible to repay the 
purchase money — some four hundred pounds sterling, 
if I remember rightly — which he never expected to be 
able to repay at all. 
The German told me some interesting things about 
the immediate neighbourhood of the camp. The Indians 
of the Cayapo tribe, who lived close by, did not interfere 
with the seringueiros. He had been there several years 
in succession, and he had never seen an Indian. The 
seringueiros went to collect rubber during some three or 
four months only each year, after which time they returned 
to the distant towns south as far as Cuyaba and Corumba. 
At the beginning of the rainy season, when the time came 
for them to retire, the Indians generally began to remind 
the seringueiros that it was time to go, by placing obstacles 
on the estrada, by removing cups or even the collars from 
the rubber trees. But so far in that region, although foot¬ 
marks of Indians and other signs of them had been 
noticed, not one individual had been actually seen. Their 
voices were frequently heard in the distance, singing war 
songs. 
11 
