6. They are given no medical treatment, but are left to die, eaten by maggots, when they serve as food for the chiefs’ dogs.
7. They are castrated and mutilated, and their ears, fingers, arms, and legs are cut off.
8. They are tortured by means of fire and water, and by tying them up, crucified head down.
9. Their houses and crops are burned and destroyed wantonly and for amusement.
10. They are cut to pieces and dismembered with knives, axes, and machetes.
11. Their children are grasped by the feet and their heads are dashed against trees and walls until their brains fly out.
12. Their old folk are killed when they are no longer able to work for the company.
13. Men, women, and children are shot to provide amusement for the employees or to celebrate the sábado de gloria, or, in preference to this, they are burned with kerosene so that the employees may enjoy their desperate agony.
This is indeed a horrible indictment, and may seem incredible to many. On the other hand, we all know the inhuman atrocities of the Congo, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the conditions that have made that region so notorious do not fail to produce precisely similar results in the vast and isolated region of the Putumayo. In addition to this, during my subsequent investigations in Iquitos I obtained from a number of eye-witnesses accounts[97] of many of the abominable outrages that take place here hourly, and these, with my own observations, are the basis for the indictment.
This state of affairs is intolerable. The region monopolised by this company is a living hell—a place where unbridled cruelty and its twin-brother, lust, run riot, with consequences too horrible to put down in writing. It is a blot on civilisation; and the reek of its abominations mounts to heaven in fumes of shame. Why is it not stopped? Peru will not, because this company is settling in and occupying the disputed territory in her name. Colombia and Ecuador cannot, for they are not in a condition to quarrel with Peru.