It will do no harm if I briefly describe the method of obtaining the india-rubber. Tiny pots of tin, holding about half a pint, are hung under an incision in the bark of the tree, and these are filled and emptied every day, the contents being delivered by the Indian labourers at the house or hut of an under-overseer.
The sap is all emptied into larger utensils, and a large smoking fire, made of the nuts of a curious kind of palm called the Motokoo, being built, the operators dip wooden shovels into the sap, twirling these round quickly and holding them in the smoke. Coagulation takes place very quickly. Again the shovel is dipped in the sap, and the same process is repeated until the coagulated rubber is about two inches thick, when it is cooled, cut, or sliced off, and is ready for the distant market.
Now, from the very day of their arrival, there was no love lost between the old and steady hands and this new band of independent and flighty ones.
The latter were willing enough to slice the bark and to hang up their pannikins, and they would even empty them when filled, and condescend to carry their contents to the preparing-house. But they were lazy in the extreme at gathering the nuts, and positively refused to smoke the sap and coagulate it.
It made them weep, they explained, and it was much more comfortable to lie and wait for the sap while they smoked and talked in their own strange language.
After a few days the permanent hands refused to work at the same trees, or even in the same part of the estrados or roads that led through the plantation of rubber-trees.
A storm was brewing, that was evident. Nor was it very long before it burst.
All unconscious that anything was wrong, Peggy, with Brawn, was romping about one day enjoying the busy scene, Peggy often entering into conversation with some of her old favourites, when one of the strange Indians, returning from the tub with an empty tin, happened to tread on Brawn's tail.
The dog snarled, but made no attempt to bite. Afraid, however, that he would spring upon the fellow, Peggy threw herself on the ground, encircling her arms around Brawn's shoulders, and it was she who received the blow that was meant for the dog.
It cut her across the arm, and she fainted with pain.