As soon as the forest is explored and the seringueiras discovered, =estrades= are opened, these being winding roads cut in the undergrowth and brush-wood with the “facão” (a species of large pruning-knife) and these roads connect a 100 or 150 rubber trees and they lead back to their original starting point. At sunrise, that is to say, at 6 o’clock in the morning, the seringueiro armed with a “terçado” a sort of spear, a fowling-piece or sporting-gun, a small axe or hatchet, a pail and a large number of “tigelinhas,” commences his work. The hatchet is the instrument employed for tapping the trees; it takes the form of a common pole-axe, being, however, generally of cast iron and with the edge of the blade blunt rather than sharp, and from 3 to 4 centimetres broad. The tigelinhas are small vessels or cups of tin-plate with a capacity of about one hundred grammes and of a conical shape cut off at the top. The seringueiro commences by striking the trees with the hatchet, whose handle is about a metre long, which permits of his making incisions at about from 3 to 3½ metres from the ground. That operation has for its object to make the latex ascend from the roots; the milk that oozes out is utilized as “sernamby.” Two days afterwards, the regular extraction commences, a hatchet with a shorter handle being then used. To bring this extraction about, “seringueiro” makes the first incision at two metres from the ground, but those incisions must not pierce the cambium and the wood and are as a general rule made at an inclination of 25°. At the lower part of the incisions made by the blows, the “tigelinhas” are fixed, whose sharp and cutting corner penetrates easily into the bark of the tree. The seringueiro operates thus upon all the trees of his road, and this work which occupies him about from 2 to 3 hours being completed, he takes the pail capable of holding 10 litres and recommences his round, gathering into that receptacle the milk contained in the tapping cups, which now empty are boxed one into the other and deposited close to the trunk of each tree. After that second round and in order that the milk shall not become deteriorated, commences the most delicate operation, that of the smoking process. For that operation, the seringueiro is supplied with a “boião,” a kind of earthen funnel-shaped chimney, a form made like a spatula or putty-knife and a kind of basin “cuia,” like a dry gourd, made from the half of the fruit of the cabaceiro (crescencia cuyeté). The fire made with blocks of urucury (Ataléa speciosa Martius) or with fire-wood of massaranduba, rich in oily substances, being kindled, the seringueiro places the “boião” upon it, the function of this latter being to canalize the smoke so that it escapes at the top, which is open.