"All that is sensible of this among those interested in the rubber industry, whether of Europe, the United States, or Brazil, should heartily unite in assisting the best elements of Peruvian life to strengthen the arm of justice, and to establish upon the Putumayo and throughout the Montaña, wherever the rubber-seeker seeks his profits, a rule of right dealing and legality. It may be long before a demoralisation drawing its sanction from so many centuries of indifference and oppression can be uprooted, but Christianity owns schools and missions as well as _Dreadnoughts_ and dividends. In bringing to that neglected region and to those terrorised people something of the suavity of life, the gentleness of mind, the equity of intercourse between man and man that Christianity seeks to extend, the former implements of her authority should be more potent than the latter. "I have, &c., "ROGER CASEMENT." CONCLUSION The foregoing are but a few portions of the accounts published in Consul Casement's Report given by the Barbados men whose statements were taken. They have been here selected to show that the worst stories of almost incredible barbarity were more than confirmed. No apology is needed for setting them forth in this book. It is in the interests of truth and justice that one half of the world should know how another, remoter half lives. The history of the affair throws a light on the curious character of people of various nationalities connected with it. The Latin Americans, even those who committed the most appalling deeds, are such people as would under ordinary circumstances receive the traveller with high-sounding phrases of hospitality. Away from the restraining power of civilisation and public opinion, it is seen that men of certain character easily revert to primitive instincts of cruelty and oppression, and hold human life the cheapest thing on earth. The terrible indictment that has been made of Peruvian methods away from the influence of their cities shows how far from the principle of self-government the people of Latin America still are. It is to be recollected, moreover, that these poor forest Indians differ very little from the people who have formed the basis of Peruvian and Latin American nationality generally: whilst the Indians and Cholos of the uplands, who are still subjected to oppression and civic negligence, are those from whom Peru and others of the Andine republics draw, and always will draw, unless a strong tide of immigration sets in, the bulk of their citizens. The governing Peruvians and Bolivians of to-day are formed from that race. They bear its stamp upon their faces and cuticle. This brown race, which has, in Mexico and Peru, produced statesmen and law-givers, is nothing to be ashamed of, yet the _mestizos_, or people of mixed race, forming the bulk of the Latin American nations, are harsher in their conduct towards the Indian than are white men.