clearing, and the labour of felling the forest trees, and clearing the ground over an area of often two hundred acres, or even more, falls upon the surrounding Indian population. Here, again, neither pay nor food is supplied. The Indians are brought in from their homes, men and women, and while the men fell the trees and undertake the heavier duties, women are put to clearing the ground and planting a certain area of it. Those of the stations I visited outside La Chorrera--viz., Occidente, Ultimo Retiro, Entre Ríos, Matanzas, Atenas, and Sur, in addition to a large and extremely well-built dwelling-house for the white man and his assistants, as well as suitable dependencies for servants, women, &c., were each surrounded by immense clearings, which represented a considerable labour in the first case, and one which had fallen wholly upon the Indian families in the vicinity. Sometimes these clearances were put to economic use--notably that at Entre Ríos, where quite a large area was well planted with cassava, maize, and sugar-cane; but this was the only station which can be said to maintain itself, and all the work of clearing and of planting here had fallen, not upon the employees of the company but upon the surrounding Indian population. At other stations one found the dwelling-houses standing in the midst of a very extensive clearing, which apparently served no other purpose beyond giving light and air. At Atenas, for instance, the station houses are built on a slope above the River Cahuinari, and an area of fully two hundred acres has been cleared of its original forest trees, which lie in all stages of decay encumbering the ground, but scarcely one acre is under any form of cultivation. At Matanzas a somewhat similar state of neglect existed, and the same might be said in varying degree of the stations of Ultimo Retiro and Occidente. Large areas of fairly fertile cleared ground are lying waste and serve no useful purpose. Food which might easily be raised locally is brought literally from thousands of miles away at great expense, and often in insufficient quantity. [Illustration: HUITOTOS AT ENTRE RIOS AND BARBADOS NEGRO OVERSEER. [To face p. 296.] "The regular station hands--that is to say, the employees in receipt of salaries--do no work. Their duties consist in seeing that the surrounding forest Indians work rubber and supply them so far as may be with what they need. For this purpose the principal requisite is a rifle and a sufficiency of cartridges, and of these there are always plenty." * * * * * A further Report was transmitted by Consul Casement to Sir Edward Grey in March, 1911, giving a general description of methods of rubber-collecting and treatment of Indians on the Putumayo by the Peruvian Amazon Company, containing the following information:--