When you see _Ficus elastica_ in its native element, you can hardly believe that it is exactly the same species of vegetation as the small “rubber plants” whose acquaintance you have made in many a hall and drawing-room. At home, on the lower slopes of the mountains of Northern India--in Darjeeling, Sikkim, Bhotan, Assam, and Burma--and in Java and Sumatra, it is a big tree, which has very peculiar habits. In the early years of its life the tree has a single trunk, with numerous branches. The branches soon begin to let down bush-ropes, which in growing reach to the ground. Here they enter the soil and take root, and as these new roots spread, the bush-ropes develop into big trunks. A well-established Ficus is a most curious sight. It has claimed for its own an extensive ground space, the whole surface of which is occupied by exposed roots. Rising from their midst is a crowd of large trunks; and high and low among the branches are the aerial roots, from which all but one of the crowd came into existence as bush-ropes. [Illustration: TAPPING A RUBBER-VINE, BELGIAN CONGO. _Page 39_] To get at the Ficus milk, the natives hack great pieces out of the trunks of the trees. Like the Africans, they sacrifice quality to quantity in their general methods of collecting and preparing their rubber. The material made from Ficus milk is commonly known as Assam rubber. Rubber of various qualities is now made from the latex of the Jelutong tree. This tree, which is a giant among forest giants, flourishes in the jungles of Sarawak, Borneo, Sumatra, and Malaya. The tapping of Jelutong is roughly done by natives, and the milk is coagulated by the help of petroleum. CHAPTER X KINDRED PRODUCTS TO RUBBER Distinct from rubber, but closely akin to it, are the two materials known as “gutta-percha” and “balata.” The gutta-percha tree has its home in the Far East, in Malay, the East Indies, and the South Sea Islands. The trees are sometimes tapped as they stand, by a similar method of V-shaped cuts as is practised by the Nicaraguans in tapping Castilloas. Sometimes they are felled, trunk and branches being then ringed with cuts. Gutta milk, like rubber milk, is white. Sometimes it flows freely, in which case it is collected in cups or calabashes. It always coagulates very quickly, sometimes so rapidly that none runs out of the cuts; these get filled up with solid strips, which can be pulled off. Frequently it runs so gently that it can be collected on a bit of coagulated gutta. When a small pellet of solidified gutta is rolled along a cut, the fresh milk sticks to it, and quickly hardens. In some districts the free-flowing gutta milk is coagulated by boiling. In others it is left to itself to turn into a thick cream, and is then coated over a piece of completely coagulated gutta.