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Cornugaya Directory 08
Page 09
On October 19th we came in for a howling storm of wind and rain, waves
being produced in the river as high as those that occur in the sea. We
tossed about considerably and shipped a lot of water. More immense
sand-beaches were passed, and then we came to a region of domed rocks
showing along the river bank. At all the _baracaos_, or trading sheds
where the _seringueiros_ bought their supplies, the same rubbish was for
sale: condemned, quite uneatable ship biscuits sold at 5_s._ a kilo;
Epsom salts at the rate of L2 sterling a kilo; putrid tinned meat at the
rate of 10_s._ a tin; 1-lb. tins of the commonest French salt butter
fetched the price of 10_s._ each. The conversation at all those
halting-places where the trading boats stopped was dull beyond words, the
local scandal--there was plenty of it always--having little interest for
me.
We went along the banks of the beautiful island of Antas, after which we
halted at the house of Jose Maracati, a Mundurucu chieftain, with thirty
Indians under him. A delegate of the Para Province in charge of the
Indians--a man of strong Malay characteristics and evidently of Indian
parentage--received us, and gave me much information about the local
rubber industry. He told me that the best rubber found in that region was
the kind locally called _seringa preta_, a black rubber which was
coagulated with the smoke of the _coco de palmeira_. He calculated that
150 rubber trees gave about 14 kilos of rubber a day. The _seringa preta_
exuded latex all the year round, even during the rainy season.
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