Besides the jebe, or Pará rubber, the forests of the Montaña yield great quantities of the variety called caucho, which is gathered in regions where the heat and humidity are not so great as in the seringa lands. The cauchero works on a plan different from that of the seringuero; if he is collecting caucho in planchas, or slabs, he fells the tree near a hole made for the purpose of receiving the latex as it flows, and then he mixes this fluid with common soap, or an infusion of vetilla, to bring about coagulation; if he wishes to extract the sernambi de caucho, which is of greater value than the plancha, his method is to bleed the tree by cutting deep gashes in it with his machete, or hatchet, and leaving the milk to flow in little canals, artificially prepared to conduct the latex, which becomes coagulated on exposure to the air and forms ribbons of rubber, that are rolled into balls and shipped in this form. Each tree furnishes, on an average, about fifty pounds of caucho. A moderate duty is levied on the exportation of all rubber, jebe paying a cent and a half, gold, a pound, and caucho a cent a pound; this rate is only about one-fifth of the export duty charged in Brazil, and one-half that in Bolivia.
A TURBULENT TRIBUTARY OF THE MADRE DE DIOS RIVER.
Foreign enterprise has done a great deal in developing the rubber industry in Peru, the government making liberal concessions to those who purchase rubber lands for exploitation. Tracts of virgin woodland in the Montaña are sold at the rate of a dollar an acre, and grants are made under liberal conditions; a number of acres of land, supposed to contain rubber trees, or a number of estradas, may be rented by paying one dollar for every hundred pounds of rubber extracted, the destruction of the trees being forbidden. The Inca Rubber Company is one of the most important foreign enterprises in the Montaña. This company was the outgrowth of a concession granted by the Peruvian government to Chester W. Brown, of the Inca Mining Company, for certain lands located in the Montaña, in the Department of Puno. The government ceded to the company eight thousand acres of land for every mile of road opened to public traffic between the Santo Domingo mine and the Madre de Dios River, or a navigable point on the Tambopata, the road to be approximately seven feet wide, with a maximum grade of ten per cent and to afford all the conditions necessary for the safe and comfortable transportation of passengers and freight. Not only has the road been completed through the rich rubber lands between the Inambari and Tambopata Rivers to the head of navigation at Astillero station, but a steamer, the Inca, has been built to connect this port with Riberalta and, by means of the San Antonio railway—now under construction in accordance with the Acre treaty between Bolivia and Brazil—with the Madeira and Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean. The completion of the Inca Rubber Company’s road ensures an outlet to the Atlantic by a short route from the Pacific, as the Southern railway connects the Pacific port of Mollendo with the station of Tirapata, whence the road is built to Santo Domingo, Puerto Candamo, and Astillero. From Tirapata to Astillero, the distance is two hundred and eighty miles through a rich rubber country. Over this long distance, the steamer Inca was brought in pieces, carried on the backs of Indians, to the company’s shipyard, for which the port is named, “Astillero” meaning “shipyard.” Here it was built and launched on the Tambopata. A telephone connects Astillero with Santo Domingo and Tirapata, and electricity is used in lighting the town. Explorations have been made in this region by Mr. Brown and Professor Baily, of Harvard University, and the Wilson River was discovered by an explorer sent out at the Inca Rubber Company’s expense.
A RUBBER CAMP IN THE MONTAÑA.
RAPIDS ON THE TAMBOPATA RIVER.
A TYPICAL SCENE ON THE WATERWAYS OF THE UPPER AMAZON.