Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
survives only on money advanced to him by rapacious labor contractors who cheat him with fictional
land parcels and chain him to debts for the rest of his days.
Fromthefirstslashofhistappingknife,the seringueiro istrappedwithinanunendurablecycle:the
exhausting struggles to undo a debt that constantly expands, always equaling the energy of his toils.
In the dreary round of his existence he is completely alone. In this respect, the exploitation of rub-
ber is worse than that of caucho : it enforces exile. Dostoyevsky's darkest narratives of Siberia could
scarcely capture the tapper's torment: a man confined to the same trail, tethered to the same trees, for
his entire life, setting off each day from the same point along the prison of his dark and narrow pas-
sage.Forhim,thetaskofSisyphusistomovenotastonebuthisownbodyalongthecrampedarcsof
the endless circuit of this wall-less dungeon. It takes but an hour to learn the task that will consume
himtherestofhislife.Withoutthemostrobustinnerresources,thetappersoonbecomesamereshell,
an dullard drained of all hope, illusions, and the taste for adventure that prompted him to make that
fatal bid for fortune. Mental decline is matched by physical decadence. All precepts of diet, which
is the key to health in the tropics, are abandoned: poverty rations of suspect and nauseating canned
goods plus the luck of the hunt make up his meals.
Buttheworstisthesolitude.Bythenatureofhistrade,thetapperisobligedtobeahermit.Evenin
Acre,wherethegreaterdensityoftreespermits16rubbertrailsinasquareleague(suchanareacould
sustain fifty small farming families), has but eight men who are widely dispersed and rarely ever see
each other. A medium-sized rubber estate with two hundred estradas is about fifteen square leagues;
this latifundia , which could easily be populated by three thousand active inhabitants, carries on with
a scattered and invisible population of one hundred workers. This is the systematic conservation of
wilderness, the prison cell for men in an unmeasured amplitude of land.
Despite the haphazard and brutish manner of occupation and of life, the newborn society adapts
and progresses. Its evolution, slow and continuous, is apparent to even the least curious traveler in
the Purús.At first indifferent to the land, ourpioneer settles in. Houses emerge in forest clearings and
on the river flats, and on the solid banks above, one can see the first areas of farming. The gloomy
barracks covered with palm branches are transmuted into regular homes or ample houses of rock and
mortar. In Sebastopol, Canocory, São Luis de Cassauan, Itaituba, Realizam, and dozens of other set-
tlements in the Lower Purús, in Liberdade, Concordia, even the most remote sites, their numerous
houses cluster around the small churches and expand into real villages. These are the material images
of control and definitive possession, tangible evidence of social evolution.
The place-names are telling. Some are elaborate, but all, from the oldest to the new, are eloquent.
In the land without history, such names proffer the first fragmentary intimations of our national epic.
In the initial agonizing phase of settlement, the names evoke sadness, martyrdom, cries of despair,
and appeals for help. On boards tacked up on the houses of these hamlets the traveler can read:
“God Save Us.” “Saudade” [Yearning]. “St. John of Mercy.” “Damned.” “Hell.” Other names record
a more hopeful aspect and the cheer of the redeemed: “New Enchantment,” “Triumph,” “Let's See,”
“Liberty,” “Paradise.”
Thefartheruptheriver,themorepronouncedtheoptimism.AftertheconfluenceoftheAcreRiver
one sees along some stretches that the various estates fronting the river show signs of well-cultivated
homesteads, settled a long time ago. Nothing remains of the uncouth or brutish outposts of the pi-
oneers. Past Cátiana, past Macapá far upriver, until Sobral, with its tiny plantations of coffee which
providefortheirownneeds,oneseesthewholestory:fromthesmall-scaleagriculture,nowcommon,
to the well-tended orchards, the prudent husbandry of the settler who created this land, and now will
never abandon it.
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