One cannot help hoping that this will be the case. When one thinks, e.g., of the Uachins in the forests at the head of Namkong, who spend forty days in carrying their rubber on men's shoulders across the mountains to Assam, or of the horrible stories of the Congo Free State, plantation seems decidedly a more satisfactory method of supplying us with golf balls and bicycle tyres. The first account of india-rubber is found in Herrera (Columbus's second voyage), who describes the way in which the natives play "with great dexterity and nimbleness." "They struck balls with any part of their bodies." Juan de Torquemada in 1615 gives quite a good description of the Castilloa rubber:-- "The tree is held in great estimation, and grows in a hot country. It is not a very high tree: the leaves are round and of an ashy colour: it yields a white milky substance, thick and gummy and in great abundance. It is wounded with axe or cutlass, and from the wound the liquid drops into calabashes: Indians who have got no calabashes smear their bodies over with it (for nature is never without a resource), and when it becomes dry remove the whole incrustation."[136] [136] Collins, _Gutta-percha and Indiarubber_. The first patent for waterproofing seems to have been granted in 1791. A Charles Macintosh invented the garment named after him in 1823. Very little of the commercial rubber is obtained from the common india-rubber Fig (_Ficus elasticus_) which we commonly grow indoors. This is one of those species of the Fig family which are generally found growing on the branches or trunks of other trees, though their own roots crawl down the trunk of the support to the ground. Once these roots have reached the ground, they take firm hold and grow so large and thick that they may be able to hold up the Fig tree even if the original support decays and crumbles away. The gutta-percha which we use comes chiefly from Singapore, which is a sort of world's market for rubber. There are a great many different varieties and substitutes of this substance, but the best kinds come from Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo. The uses of gutta-percha and of vulcanite, which is manufactured from it, are very varied. Thus, it is employed for the soles of boots, door-handles, pipes, ear-trumpets, buckets, submarine cables, etc. It is indestructible in sea-water, and does not conduct electricity. A very extraordinary exception to the general rule that latex is highly poisonous, is found in the famous Cow Tree of Venezuela. This tall tree (it is often 100 feet high) is found in large forests near Cariaco, on the coast of that country. Its milk is said to closely resemble ordinary milk in taste, and to be perfectly wholesome and nutritious, but it is rather sticky. This tree was responsible for all sorts of curious and extraordinary legends in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. CHAPTER XXV ON CLIMBING PLANTS