cr own readers

210 TH E RUBBER-TREES OF THE AMAZON.
dark, impenetrabl e, a hundred feet of leafy .spl end our.
And br eaking out everywhere from among the heap edup
masses rise th e pa lm trees in thousands. F or hen .
th e palms hold court ; nowhere else is thei r glory
unveiled as we see it here. If palms standing alone
are estee med the most beautiful of trees, wh at shall
we say wh en their numbers are counted, not by scores
or by hundreds, but by thousands, and where they are
seen against a background of such for est as can never
be found outside of the tropics ?
3. The I ndian pil ot of our boat poin ts out numbers
of rubber-trees, and we learn to recognize their wh ite
trunks and shining brigh t-green foliage. This low
region is one of the most important rubber districts,
I\nJ hundreds of natives are employe d in gathering
and preparing the crude gum. Occasionall y we see
th eir tha tched huts along the shore, bu ilt on piles, and
always damp, reeking , dismal, suggestive of ag ue and
rh eumatism ; for the tide-lowlands, glorious as they
appear from the river, are sodden marshes .within,
4. The rubber -trees are scattered through marshy
fores ts, wh ere we clamber over logs, and sink into
pools of mu d, and leap the pu ddl es ; where the. mosquitoes
are bloodthirsty, and natu re is dam p and dark
and threatening; where the silence is un brok en by
beast or bird.
5. In the early morning, men and women come
with baskets of clay cups on their backs, and little
hatchet s to gas h the trees. Wh ere the whi te milk
drips down from the gashes, th ey stick their cups on
the trun k with daubs of clay. If the tree is a large
one, four or five gashes may be cut in a circl e round
the trunk. By noon the flow of milk has ceased.