said to have considerably diminished in numbers. One informant assured me that there were now not more than 10,000 Huitotos, if, indeed, so many. This decrease in population is attributed to many causes. By some it is stated to be largely due to smallpox and other diseases introduced by white settlers. The Indians themselves in their native state are singularly free from disease. From trustworthy evidence placed before me during my visit I have no doubt that, however high the deaths from imported diseases may have been, the deaths from violence and hardship consequent upon the enforced tribute of rubber required from these people have been much higher. "Statements made to me by the Barbados men, and which could not be controverted on the spot, made this abundantly clear. Many, indeed all, of the men had been for several years in the closest contact with the Indians, and their duties, as they averred, chiefly consisted in compelling the Indians to work india-rubber for the white man's benefit, and otherwise to satisfy his many wants. It would be tedious to go through statements made by these different British witnesses, and it may be sufficient to say that they left no doubt in my mind or in the minds of the commission sent out by the Peruvian Amazon Company that the method of exacting rubber from the Indians was arbitrary, illegal, and in many cases cruel in the extreme, and the direct cause of very much of the depopulation brought to our notice. The Barbados men themselves complained to me that they too had frequently suffered ill-treatment at the hands of agents of the company, whose names were given to me in several cases, and several of whom were still employed on the Putumayo in the service of the company at the date of my visit. On closer investigation I found that more than once these British employees of the company had been subjected to criminal ill-treatment." "These men had been tortured by being put in the stocks for misdemeanours, or for refusing to maltreat the Indians, under the orders of Normand, Rodríguez, Sánchez, and other chiefs of sections. Normand and others afterwards attempted to bribe them into lying or concealment of facts in their testimony before the Consul. The stocks are described by Consul Casement:--