Excerpt from The Rubber Country of the Amazon I think it was in 1870 that I started to outfit my first expedition to the Amazon. It was not in any sense scientific nor had I the interests of the rubber trade then at heart. It was to be a hunting and fishing trip solely, varied by occasional battles with Indians. A treacherous companion, to whom I incautiously confided some of the outfitting details, betrayed the trust to my mother. She confiscated my gun, an elder sister hid the ammunition, so I was compelled to abandon the attempt for a short time, (forty years in retrospect is not long). And what a satisfaction to feel that one's early ambitions are finally realized, at least in part. The delay in the journey altered my viewpoint somewhat, and changed the equipment. The gun, hunting knife, and lasso did not seem so important as a Letter of Credit; nor did I have that intense yearning for slaughter that dominated Expedition No. I. Then, too, much rubber research in other tropical countries made the prospect of this trip particularly alluring. From the time when La Condamine made his report to the Royal Geographical Society at Paris upon the curious gum that he found in the Brazils, the Amazon river has been visited by a procession of specialists. Some went for adventure, some for trade and some in the interest of science. To such as Humboldt, Agassiz, and Spruce whose search was for knowledge the reward was the richest of all. With one-half of the worlds product of india rubber coming from the mighty Amazon, with the great northern states of Brazil, and notable portions of Peru and Bolivia dependant wholly upon the rubber business it seemed time that the story of "Ouro Preto" (black gold as the Brazilians most appropriately call india rubber), be fully and fairly told. Personally I am more than pleased that it is my fortune thus to tell the story. Not altogether my own experiences but a composite sketch, to which Governors of states, Captains of trading vessels, half breed rubber gatherers, American, English, German and Brazilian business men have all contributed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.