These women live a life of idleness, and very often of vice, on the land of the white man, and frequently treat the village women with disdain and shower contumely upon them. If, as sometimes happens, high words ensue, the village women have no chance whatever, for the others can say a word to their husbands or paramours, who are armed with guns, and it is an easy thing for them to avenge such quarrels on their next visit to the village of which the women happen to be natives. There are generally a few villages in close proximity to the white man’s place the natives of which are set apart to supply paddlers, carriers, dried fish for employees’ rations, manioca bread, &c., and who are not reckoned amongst the rubber workers. We used to envy the inhabitants of these places, and some of our people tried to leave their own homes and go to reside where the people seemed to us to be better off than we were. But this was not allowed by the white man; if found out, the offence was punished severely either with the whip or prison, so we gave it up. And even in these favoured villages they had their trials; fowls and eggs were required as well as other little things, and they had to be supplied somehow, and it was often anyhow. As long as the supplies came to hand regularly, and no complaints were made by the villagers against the sentries who were sent out to collect the food or call the people, all went well. But it could not possibly be peaceful for long, because our people were treated in ways that no one, not even an animal, would put up with quietly. And although I know you white people do not like to hear of bad doings, I must tell you of some now, or you cannot understand how we feel about this rubber and other work which we are compelled to do by strangers of whom we know nothing, and to whom we think we owe nothing. Think how you would feel, if you had been out in the forest for eleven or twelve days and nights, perhaps in the wet season, when the wind blows so that you cannot climb the trees for fear of either the tree or yourself being blown down; and the rain pours in torrents and quickly soaks through the leaf thatch of your temporary hut (just a roof supported on four sticks) and puts out your fire, so that all night long you sit and shiver; you cannot sleep for the mosquitoes; and, strong man as you are, you weep, because the day which is past has passed in vain, you have no rubber! Then, if a fine morning follows, and you manage to make a fire, (with tinder and flint,) eat a little food you have kept over, and start off again in feverish haste to find a vine before some one else gets it. You find one, make several incisions, place your calabash under the dripping sap, and your hopes begin to rise. Towards evening it rains again, and again you can scarcely sleep for the cold; you have nothing to cover yourself with, and the only source of warmth is a few smouldering embers in the centre of the hut.