The Portuguese founded the colony of Brazil early in the sixteenth century, but naturally their first settlements were on the coast. About a hundred years later they began to explore the Amazon. The first European pioneer to journey along this wonderful waterway was a Portuguese missionary, and it is said that he was the first civilized man to see the natives of Brazil making use of rubber. Be this as it may, it is certain that the natives had long been acquainted with the product when the Portuguese began to colonize the Amazon Valley, for the settlers found that the aborigines of the district were skilled in making not only balls for playthings, but such useful articles as water-tight shoes and bags out of the sap of a tree that flourished in this locality.
It is not at all likely that the natives of Brazil had received any help from the natives of Haïti or Mexico in the matter of discovering that tree and the peculiar value of its sap. For the aborigines of Southern America are not given to wandering off to foreign lands either on business or pleasure, and even in these days it is only the very enthusiastic traveller or the man whose living depends on the rubber industry who undertakes a journey into the interior of Brazil, where, for the most part, the means of communication are still very primitive.
So far, I have shown you there is little doubt that the aborigines of Brazil discovered the rubber in their own country; and I think I have given you sufficient evidence for asking you to believe that the discovery was made off their own bat, and at quite as early a period as the natives of Haïti and of Mexico separately and independently discovered the rubber-trees in their own homelands.
I will now give you some further proofs that there is more truth than fiction in the story I told you.
Come with me into the Brazilian forests this very day. The scenery, you find, is so wildly beautiful that words cannot possibly do it justice, much less exaggerate its delights; in spite of the coming of the European, and the annual invasion by hundreds of rubber-gatherers, few changes have been made in the name of Progress within these forests; so in the days before the white man knew of their existence they must have looked very much the same as they do now. And the pure-bred Brazilian native has not been entirely wiped off the face of his homeland. You may still come across some of the aborigines, and they still scorn clothes, adorn themselves with feathers and beads, carry a blowpipe, hunt their meat, and trap their fish.