The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1879-06-19
GATHERING RUBBER.

The rubber swamps are all around, but
land travelling is out of the question. So
an Indian canoe-man is engaged good
natured fellow, and an adept in wood
craft. He sets us across the river at q
half ruined hut, where bright vines clam
| ber over the broken thatch and hang in
long festoons in front of the low door.
way; but within, the floor is sodden
black clay, and dark mold hangs on the
side, and the air is like sepulcher. The
single slovenly ''mameluca" woman who
| inhabits the place complains bitterly of
the ague which tortures her; yet year
after year, until the house falls to pieces,
she will go on dying here, because, for
| sooth. it is her own, and the rubber trees
are near. She will not even repair the
structure. You can see the sky through
| the roof, but if rain drives in she will
| swing her hammock in another corner,
and shiver on through the night as best
she may; for tomorrow there are rubber
trees to be tapped, and fresh harvest of
the precious milk to be brought home
and what viii you have? One must ex-
pect discomfort in a swamp.
Back of the house the rubber trees are
scattered through marshy forests, where
we Chamber over logs and sink into pools
of mud and leap the puddles; where the
mosquitoes are lood-thirsty, and nature
is damp, and dark and threatening;
where the silence is unbroken by beast or
bird-a silence that can be felt; it is like
| a tomb, in which we are buried away
from the sunshine, away from the brute
and man, alone with rotting death. The
very beauty of our forest tomb makes us
shudder by its intensenenss.
In the early morning men and women
come with baskets or clay cups on their
backs, and little hatchets to cash the
trees. Where the white milk drips down
from the cash they stick their cups on
the trunk with daubs of clay, nodded so
as to catch the whole flow. If the tree
| is large one, four or five gashes may be
cut in circle around the trunk. On the
next day other gashes are made little
| below these, and so on, until the gashes
reach the ground. By IL o'clock the
| flow of milk has ceased, and the ''ser-
ingneiros' come to collect the contents
of the cups in calabash jugs. A gill or
so is the utmost yield from each tree, and
a single gatherer may attend to 120 trees
or more, wading through these dark
marshes, and paying dearly for his profit
by fever and weakness.
Our "mameluca" hostess has brought
in her days gathering-a calabash full OF
white liquid, in appearance exactly like
milk. If left in this condition it coagu-
lates and forms an inferior, whitish gum.
To make the black rubber of commerce
the milk must go through peculiar pro-
cess OF manufacture, for which our guide
has been preparing. Over smouldering
fire, fed with the hard nuts of the tucuma
palm, he places kind of clay chimney,
like a de-mouthed bottomless Jug;
through this ''boiao" the thick smoke
pours in constant stream. Now he
takes his mold-in this case a wooden
one, like roundbladed paddle-washes
it with the milk, and holds it over the
smoke until it coagulates. Then another
coat is added, only now, as the wood is
heated, the milk coagulates faster. II
may take the gatherings of two or three
days to cover the mold thickly enough.
Then the rubber is still white, but in a
short time it turns brown and finally al
most black, as it is sent to the market.
The mass is cut from the paddle and sold
to traders in the village. Bottles are
sometimes made by molding the rubber
over clay ball, which is then broken up
and removed. Our old-fashioned rubber
shoes used to be made in this way
.Scribner's Magazine.