About 1900, however, a competitor gave signs of life in the cradle of the Middle East. The public knew little about that competitor, and cared less; the experts with very few exceptions derided it. But a few years later both the experts and the public began to realize that, for the first time in its triumphant career, wild Para had a really fearsome rival. This adversary is commonly known as Plantation Rubber; as a matter of fact, it is Cultivated Para, which has made such a determined fight for supremacy in the raw rubber market. This is indeed a case of child rising up against parent, for the Cultivated Para is all being obtained from trees that owe their existence to seeds taken from the Brazilian forests. The struggle has brought about a revolution in the Rubber World; all of you must have heard of at least one of the stirring events to which it has already given rise—the Rubber Boom in the spring of 1910.
[CHAPTER IV]
WE VISIT A SERINGAL
We want to see for ourselves the way the present-day rubber-gatherers in Brazil do their work, and the kind of life they lead. So we have made a long journey by boat up one of the tributaries of the River Amazon to the landing-stage for a typical rubber-gatherers’ village.
We step ashore straight into the forest, and are warmly welcomed by a group of working men, who inquire eagerly for the latest news from anywhere, about anything. For days we have been travelling in a region that is far removed from the busy haunts of man, and we have grown quite used to the solitude of the wilds; but the loneliness comes home to us much more forcibly as we realize that there are civilized folk who spend nearly all their life in these out-of-the-way parts.
We set out to walk along a rough road that threads its way through the jungle. Before long we notice buildings ahead. We are close upon a “seringal”—that is to say, a village which serves as the headquarters of a number of rubber-gatherers, who work a big area of neighbouring forest-lands.
The seringal, together with the stretch of country which it serves, belongs to a man who probably lives far away in one of the two great commercial centres of Brazil—Para, at the mouth of the Amazon; or Manaos, about a thousand miles up the river. The owner may have inherited his claim to proprietorship, or he may have bought it from some other man; in any case, the tract of forest which is now regarded as his private property originally became one man’s land because in days gone by some settler tried to make a living out of rubber collecting, went so far this way, so far that in his search for rubber-trees, and gradually came to look upon the district between such self-appointed boundaries as his own personal hunting-ground.
Great care has to be taken in choosing the site for a seringal. Since none of the forests have yet been opened up for more than about a mile in the inland direction, the seringals must all be built near the riverside; it is very necessary that they should be perched on some piece of rising ground, because the waters of the Amazon rise very high at times, causing great floods.
The seringal we have come to visit is typical of the many widely scattered villages which the rubber industry has called into existence in the Brazilian forests of the Amazon—typical in its isolation, and as regards the style of its buildings, the kind of people who make up the population, and the everyday life of the little community, who are cut off from the rest of the world. The outstanding buildings are the manager’s house, which boasts a tiled roof, his office and store. These are to all intents and purposes “government” quarters; for, although the manager represents a private individual, he rules the community who work for his master with much the same sort of authority he might be expected to exercise if he held office under the Republic. Round about his quarters are some thatched shanties, which provide accommodation for part of the community. But some of the labourers have to go their daily round from tree to tree in far distant parts of the forest; where their work is, there must they make their home in a solitary hut. The merriest day of the week for everybody is Saturday, when all the rubber-gatherers have to make their way to the manager’s quarters, to hand over the rubber they have collected and to buy stores for the coming week. This general meeting, called together by business, is taken full advantage of as an opportunity for gossip, hospitality, and various little jollifications, such as a “sing-song.”
The population of a seringal consists of working-class Brazilians, who are of Portuguese and mixed Portuguese and Indian descent. Certainly they look a rough lot, but that is not surprising, seeing what a hard life they lead—and there are many rough diamonds among them. You will feel more in sympathy with them when you have lived but a day in their midst, and been with one of them on his round. But already you must have been thinking that they have not much comfort to look forward to when their work is done, for you can see at a glance that their houses are mere shelters.