When a balata-bleeder reaches his destination he builds himself a hut--a wooden framework, thatched with leaves. Then he makes a dabree, a large tray about half a foot deep, in which balata latex is coagulated. The dabree is composed of closely-fitted strips of palm, the crevices between which are filled with damp clay or earth. The joins are dried in the sun, after which the tray is made water-tight with a lining of balata. When the dabree has been fitted to a frame, and a screen of palm-leaves has been put up on the windward side to keep off the rain, the whole construction looks very much like a bedstead. Next comes the work of locating balata-trees within the appointed tract. This is a serious version of the game of hide-and-seek. The trees are concealed somewhere--anywhere among other trees and a tangle of undergrowth and overgrowth; the darkie who has come to find them has to clear the way for every step he takes in looking for them. After he has discovered a number of them, he makes his plans for going the round of these to collect a supply of latex. Each tree is tapped by means of a cutlass, an implement which the British Guiana negro uses for cutting anything from a loaf of bread to a path through the bush. The cuts are made in featherstitch pattern, running from the base of the trunk to a great height thereon. The operator stands on the ground to make the lower ones; when he has reached as far up as he can in this way, he climbs the tree by means of a bush-rope ladder, or hauls himself up in a rope cradle, or on stirrups made by twisting a rope spirally round the trunk. At the base of the trunk a calabash is put, and the latex trickles down into this by way of the zigzag cuts. The latex is poured into the dabree, where it naturally coagulates into sheets. These sheets are hung up first on the framework of the dabree to drain, and then in a shed to dry ready for being sent down to town, to the owners of the grant. Under peril of losing their licence, the owners are responsible for seeing that their labourers obey certain regulations, which have been made with a view to keeping the balata-trees in good condition. No tree may be tapped until its trunk measures 3 feet round at a distance of 4 feet from the ground. Only half the trunk surface may be bled in one season; the cuts must not exceed a given depth, must not be more than 1-1/2 inches wide, and there must be a distance of at least 10 inches between any two of them. No part of a tree may be retapped until the old wounds have quite healed, a process which takes from four to five years. Balata is largely used for machinery-belting. CHAPTER XI THE STORY OF PLANTATION RUBBER The earliest experiment in cultivating rubber was made only as far back as the seventies of last century. And it is only within the present century that cultivated rubber, or, as it is more generally called, “plantation rubber,” has become a power in the industrial world.