Part 37 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Method of Pressing Rubber into Cakes.
The alum process of coagulation being used.]
Several ways were employed in order to coagulate the latex. The simplest was the one used in Matto Grosso. The latex was poured into a rectangular wooden mould, 061 m. long (2 ft.), 046 m. wide (1 ft.), and 015 m.
deep (about 6 in.). Upon the latex was placed a solution of alum and warm water. Then coagulation took place. In order to compress the coagulating latex into solid cakes, a primitive lever arrangement was used--merely a heavy wooden bar, one end of which was inserted into the cavity of a tree, above the wooden mould, while at the other end of the bar heavy logs of wood were suspended. One night was sufficient for the latex to coagulate thoroughly and be properly compressed into cakes, weighing each about 22 kils. The cakes were lifted out by belts of liane which had been previously laid into the moulds.
The discoverer of the method of coagulating rubber with alum was Henry S.
Strauss. He also found that by keeping the latex in hermetically sealed vessels it could be preserved in a liquid state. The same result could be obtained with ammonia.
In the Amazon and Para Provinces a different process was used. The latex was coagulated by placing it near the fire. The heat evaporated the aqueous part and coagulated the vegetable alb.u.men. In order to make what was called a _garrafa_, or large ball of rubber--some weighed 20, 30, 40 kils. and more--a small ball of latex was made to coagulate round a horizontal bar of wood. That ball was gradually increased in circ.u.mference by smearing it over with more latex, which became gradually coagulated and dried by the heat and smoke produced by the burning of certain woods, and of the oily seeds of the _urucuri_ palm, technically known as the _Attalea excelsa_. In this process the rubber did not remain white, as with the alum process; in fact, it became dark brown, almost black, owing, of course, to the smoke. Locally, the smoking process was said to be the better of the two, for the coagulation with alum took away somewhat from the elasticity of the rubber.
Interesting was the _sorveira_ (_Collophora utilis_), a tree which gave latex that was quite delicious to drink, but could not be coagulated. The trees, to any untrained person, closely resembled the seringueira, only the leaves were more minute and differently shaped. It must be remembered that nearly all the trees of the Brazilian forest had leaves only at a very great height above the ground, and it was not always easy to see their shape, especially when close to other trees where the foliage got interwoven into an almost solid ma.s.s. We frequently enjoyed the sweet milk of the _sorveira_--it tasted slightly of fresh walnuts with sugar on them. It was unsafe to drink too much of it, as it had injurious effects upon one's digestive organs.
There was there also the _leiteiro_ (or producer of milk), a smaller tree, and the liana _macaco_, which both produced abundant milk, but in neither case had a way, so far, been found to coagulate it.
The two days spent at Porto Velho were interesting. The four men who had remained with me behaved fairly well, princ.i.p.ally owing to the prospect, that, in drifting down stream, they would not have to work, and would be saved the heavy trouble of grooming, packing and unpacking the animals, and the tedious job every morning of riding miles through the country in order to recover those that had strayed away during the night.
”Thank heaven!” exclaimed Antonio, as he gazed at the canoe, ”we shall not have to hunt for her every morning!”
”Yes,” answered Filippe, ”no more pack-saddles to fix, no more leading the animals to drink. She”--pointing to the canoe--”can drink all the time if she likes....”
Filippe was a prophet. The canoe did ”drink” all the time, much to our concern. Little did my men suspect before we started that they would have the hardest time of their lives--so hard, indeed, that it was amazing humans could endure it at all.
One of the three seringueiros at Porto Velho interested me greatly. He was a tall, gentlemanly, refined person, who seldom uttered a word. I noticed that he avoided meeting me, and, although extremely civil, seemed afraid to enter into conversation. The little shed he had built himself (7 ft. by 4 ft., and 7 ft. high) was extraordinarily neat, and open on all sides--quite unlike the sheds Brazilian rubber collectors build themselves.
From my tent I watched him. The man got up before sunrise every day, going at once to the river for a swim. Humming some sort of a song, he would then go through a series of gymnastic exercises, interrupted by sonorous slaps upon different parts of his anatomy to kill impertinent mosquitoes, of which there were swarms on the Arinos River. That done, he would a.s.sume a suit of working-clothes, and, returning to his shed, would pick up his tools and noiselessly depart, so as not to disturb our sleep!
At sunset, when he returned, he immediately proceeded to the river to have another swim and to get rid of the many insects which always collected upon one's person in going through the forest. Then he put on a clean suit of clothes, and, saluting us from a distance, went to his shed to rest.
I was certain the man was not a Brazilian, but as curiosity is not one of my chief characteristics I took no special notice of him. This brought him round to my tent one evening. The man was a German by birth, of a good family and excellent education. He could speak German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese to perfection, and was well versed in the literature of those languages. He had evidently drifted about for many years in many parts of South America in search of a fortune, in the Argentine, in Uruguay, and had ended by becoming a slave in Brazil. Yes, the poor old man was a voluntary slave. He had borrowed from his employer and was unable to repay. He was therefore a slave in the true sense of the word, as his employer could, according to local custom, sell him to any one he chose.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Upper Arinos River.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Arinos River above the Rapids.]
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 return 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 a man, honest, straightforward, brave. He spoke in the kindest and fairest way of his master. He had sold himself because 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 only went to collect rubber during some three or four months 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 footmarks 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.
”Hark!” said the German to me, ”do you hear them?”
I listened attentively. Far, far down the river a faint chorus of voices could just be heard--intermittent sounds of ”hua ... hua ... hua ...
hua.” In the stillness of the night the sound could be distinguished clearly. It went on until sunrise, when it gradually died out.
There was a big lagoon to the west of Porto Velho, formed by the river at high water. The lagoon dried up during the dry season. It was separated from the river only by a narrow tongue of land, 80 ft. high.
I took careful and repeated observations for lat.i.tude, longitude, and alt.i.tude, the latter by a boiling-point thermometer, from our point of departure at the headwaters of the Arinos River. The elevation of the river was there 1,200 ft. by aneroid, 1,271 ft. by the hypsometrical apparatus. The lat.i.tude was 14 2'2 South; the longitude 56 17' West of Greenwich.