It was impossible to get labour up that river. The few seringueiros, chiefly negroes who were there in absolute slavery, had been led and established by their masters up the river, with no chance of getting away. Their masters came, of course, every year to bring down the rubber that had been collected. Twenty times the quantity could easily be brought down to the coast if labour were obtainable. Not only was the Juruena River itself almost absolutely untouched commercially—as we have seen, we did not meet a soul during the fifty days we navigated it—but even important tributaries close to S. Manoel, such as the Euphrasia, the São Thomé, the São Florencio, the Misericordia, and others, were absolutely desert regions, although the quantity of rubber to be found along those streams must be immense. The difficulty of transport, even on the Tapajoz—from the junction of the two rivers the Juruena took the name of Tapajoz River—was very great, although the many rapids there encountered were mere child's play in comparison with those we had met with up above. In them, nevertheless, many lives were lost and many valuable cargoes disappeared for ever yearly. The rubber itself was not always lost when boats were wrecked, as rubber floats, and some of it was generally recovered. The expense of a journey up that river was enormous; it took forty to sixty days from the mouth of the Tapajoz to reach the collectoria of S. Manoel. Thus, on an average the cost of freight on each kilo (about 2 lb.) of rubber between those two points alone was not less than sevenpence or eightpence.
As the River Tapajoz is extremely tortuous and troublesome, I think that some day, in order to exploit that region fully, it will be found necessary to cut a road through the forest from S. Manoel to one of the tributaries of the Madeira, such as the River Secundury-Canuma, from which the rubber could be taken down to the Amazon in a few days.
From the point of junction of the River Tres Barras or S. Manoel and the Juruena, the river was fairly well known. It was partly in order to ascertain whether the project of the road from S. Manoel to the Madeira were feasible, that I decided to leave the river and cross the forest due west as far as the Madeira River.
I spent two or three most delightful days enjoying the generous hospitality of Mr. Barretto. I was able to purchase from him a quantity of provisions, enough to last us some three months, and consisting of tinned food, rice, beans, farinha, sugar, coffee, and dried meat.
Mr. Barretto kindly arranged to send his assistant, Mr. Julio Nery, and three Apiacar Indians in order to help me along during the first two or three days of our journey into the forest.
As I should be travelling on foot from that point across virgin forest, and we should have to carry whatever baggage we had, it was necessary for me to abandon all the things which were not of absolute importance, so as to make the loads as light as possible.
I left behind at S. Manoel a tent, some of my rifles, a quantity of cartridges, etc., the only articles I took along with me besides provisions being my cameras, instruments, the photographic plates already exposed, with some two hundred plates for further work, and the geological and botanical collections, which by that time had got to be valuable.
As I was unpacking the different cases in order to sort out the baggage, I came to the box where I expected to find the precious fossil human skull and the vertebræ I had discovered in Matto Grosso. To my horror the fossils were to be found nowhere. I asked Alcides and the other men, and pressed them for an answer. I received a terrible blow indeed when they confessed that nearly a month before, one night while I was asleep, they had taken the valuable possessions and had flung them into the river. Their excuse was that the loads were heavy enough in carting baggage along the rapids, and they would not be burdened with what they called "stupid stones."
This last bit of infamy turned me so much against my men that I could not bear the sight of them. It will be easily understood that when you go to such great expense and risk as I did in obtaining valuable material, and had obtained it, to be deprived of it through the ignorance and meanness of one's own men, who were treated with the greatest generosity from beginning to end, was certainly most exasperating. In a half-hearted way I packed up all the other things and made ready to continue the journey. The contempt I had for my men from that day, nevertheless, made it quite painful to me to be in their company. At S. Manoel the men gave me no end of trouble. Benedicto refused to go on any longer. The other men wanted to halt there for a month in order to recuperate their strength. Filippe the negro was drunk, and slept all the time we were there.
