The people we met with told us they
came every year to collect rubber on these islands as soon as the
waters had subsided, namely in August, and remained until January
or February.
The process is very simple. Every morning each person, man or
woman, to whom is allotted a certain number of trees, goes the
round of the whole and collects in a large vessel the milky sap
which trickles from gashes made in the bark on the preceding
evening, and which is received in little clay cups, or in
ampullaria shells stuck beneath the wounds. The sap, which at
first is of the consistence of cream, soon thickens; the
collectors are provided with a great number of wooden moulds of
the shape in which the rubber is wanted, and when they return to
the camp, they dip them into the liquid, laying on, in the course
of several days, one coat after another. When this is done, the
substance is white and hard; the proper colour and consistency
are given by passing it repeatedly through a thick black smoke
obtained by burning the nuts of certain palm trees, after which
process the article is ready for sale.
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