Gutta milk, like rubber milk, is white. Sometimes it flows freely, in which case it is collected in cups or calabashes. It always coagulates very quickly, sometimes so rapidly that none runs out of the cuts; these get filled up with solid strips, which can be pulled off. Frequently it runs so gently that it can be collected on a bit of coagulated gutta. When a small pellet of solidified gutta is rolled along a cut, the fresh milk sticks to it, and quickly hardens. In some districts the free-flowing gutta milk is coagulated by boiling. In others it is left to itself to turn into a thick cream, and is then coated over a piece of completely coagulated gutta.
Most of the gutta-gathering is done by natives, who deal very roughly with the trees, and are not at all particular about the quality of the material they prepare. But Britain and Holland, who own territory in those parts of the world where the gutta-percha tree grows, are anxious to improve the conditions under which the raw gutta industry is carried on. Already some desirable changes have been brought about, and efforts are being made to introduce other reforms in connection with working methods and general organization. Under European supervision, gutta-percha is now extracted from the leaves of the tree. And there is an estate, belonging to the Netherland Indian Government, where the best varieties of gutta-trees are being cultivated, to make up for the scarcity of them that has been brought about by the destructive methods of the native workers in the forests.
Gutta-percha lacks some of the valuable qualities of rubber: it is not elastic, in ordinary temperatures it is quite hard, and when it gets very dry it is brittle. For manufacturing purposes it has to be heated, when it can be moulded into the desired form; but as it cools, it hardens again. It is used chiefly for insulating submarine cables.
Balata is the product of a tree which flourishes in the forests of British Guiana, a little-known but magnificent country in the north-eastern corner of South America. The forests of British Guiana are a continuation of the forests of the Amazon, which they closely resemble. At present, they are only known to a few explorers, the balata-bleeders, a few seekers after gold and diamonds, and odd travellers who like to get away from the beaten tracks. In all my wanderings East and West, I have had few such delightful experiences, none more interesting and novel, than my trip to these forests. Yet, although they occupy by far the greater part of a British Colony, which is about equal in size to England, not one Briton in a thousand knows anything about them. Indeed, so little does the Mother Country appreciate the importance of owning a part, although only a comparatively small part, of the rapidly developing Continent of South America, that very few Britons know British Guiana by name even, and the majority of these imagine it is the same country as British New Guinea.
(1) TAPPING RUBBER VINE (FICUS). [Page 40]
(2) EXTRACTING GUTTA-PERCHA, NEW GUINEA. [Page 42]
Most of the balata-bleeders are negroes, the present-day natives of the Colony. The life they lead is rough and solitary, very much like that of a seringueiro.
The balata-gathering season begins in the latter part of May, but weeks before this many of the labourers have to set out on the long journey to the particular part of the forest where their work lies. They are employed, under contract, by companies who hold licences to collect balata from such or such tracts of the forest, called “grants.” All employees are paid according to the results they can show in solid balata, so much for every pound of the material; but they must go where they are sent to find it, and getting there is such a difficult and trying business that work may well be considered to begin with the journey to the grants.