yields perpetually, some existing plantations being more than a hundred years old. The cane frequently measures thirty feet in height, and is cut seven to nine months after sprouting. The whole Amazon Valley, when it shall have been opened up, will prove to be one of the most valuable parts of the earth’s surface.

Apart from topographical considerations, the sinister occurrences on the Putumayo are, to some extent, the result of a sinister human element—the Spanish and Portuguese character. The remarkable trait of callousness to human suffering which the Iberian people of Portugal and Spain—themselves a mixture of Moor, Goth, Semite, Vandal, and other peoples—introduced into the Latin American race is here shown in its intensity, and is augmented by a further Spanish quality. The Spaniard often regards the Indians as animals. Other European people may have abused the Indians of America, but none have that peculiar Spanish attitude towards them of frankly considering them as non-human. To-day the Indians are commonly referred to among Spaniards and Mestizos as animales. The present writer, in his travels in Peru and Mexico, has constantly been met with the half-impatient exclamation, on having protested against maltreatment of the Indian, of “Son animales, Señor; no son gentes.” (“They are animals, Señor; they are not folk”). The torture or mutilation of the Indian is therefore regarded much as it would be in the case of an ox or a horse. This attitude of mind was well shown in the barbarous system of forced labour in the mines in the times of the viceroys of Peru and Mexico, where the Indians were driven into the mines by armed guards and branded on the face with hot irons. When their overtaxed strength gave way under the heavy labour, which rapidly occurred, their carcasses were pitched aside and they were replaced by other slaves. These operations of the time of the Spaniards have their counterpart in the Amazon Valley to-day. There is yet a further trait of the Latin American which to the Anglo-Saxon mind is almost inexplicable. This is the pleasure in the torture of the Indian as a diversion, not merely as a vengeance or “punishment.” As has been shown on the Putumayo, and as happened on other occasions elsewhere, the Indians have been abused, tortured, and killed por motivos frivolos—that is to say, for merely frivolous reasons, or for diversion. Thus Indians are shot at in sport to make them run or as exercise in tiro al blanco or target practice, and burnt by pouring petroleum over them and setting it on fire in order to watch their agonies. This love of inflicting agony for sport is a curious psychic attribute of the Spanish race. The present writer, when in remote regions in Peru and Mexico, has had occasion to intervene, sometimes at personal risk, in the ill-treatment of Indians and peones, who were being tortured or punished to extort confession for small misdemeanours, or even for purely frivolous reasons. The Indians of Latin America are in reality grown-up children, with the qualities of such, but the Spaniards and Portuguese have recognised in these traits nothing more than what they term “animal” qualities.

The indictment of Peruvian officials in the Hardenburg narrative is extremely severe, and they are contrasted unfavourably with the Colombians. In reality there is little to choose between the methods of the representatives of any of the South American republics as regards the administration of justice in remote regions. Power is always abused in such places by the Latin American people, be they Peruvians, Colombians, Bolivians, Brazilians, Argentinos, or others. Tyranny is but a question of opportunity, in the present stage of their development. Justice is bought and sold, as far as its secondary administrators are concerned. The otherwise good qualities and fine latent force of the Latin American character are overshadowed by its more primitive instincts, which time and the growth of real democracy will eliminate.[18]

Furthermore, there are other rubber-bearing regions in the Amazon Valley where hidden abuses are committed, in the territory of other South American republics; and Peru does not stand alone, and atrocities are not confined to the Putumayo.

It was shown that many of the murders and floggings at the rubber stations were committed by the Barbadian negroes at the order of the Peruvian chiefs of sections. These negroes were forced at their own peril to these acts. But probably the savage depth of the negro is easily stirred, as all know who have had dealings therewith. There can be little doubt that the Peruvian rubber-agents knew the negro character and secured them for that reason. On the other hand, it is shown that some of these Barbadian negroes rebelled against going to the Putumayo—protested to the British Consul at Manaos, but were ordered on board by that official under police supervision.[19] When they reached the rubber stations on the remote Putumayo it was difficult to rebel against the orders of the Peruvian agents or chiefs of sections. In some cases, when they did so, they themselves received ill-treatment and were subjected to torture, for which they do not appear to have received any compensation as British subjects. The lack of advice and investigation into the conditions of their contract and service which appears to have befallen them at the hands of the British Consul at Manaos is a matter for reflection. The investigation carried out by the Consular Commission showed that some of these Barbadian negroes committed terrible crimes at the instigation of their superiors. The first contingent of these men, imported by Arana Brothers, reached the Putumayo at the end of 1904. These Barbadoes men generally term themselves “Englishmen”[20] rather than “British subjects.” They are good workers generally, and to their labour it is that the work of the Panama Canal owes its speedy execution.

It is noteworthy that one of the worst criminal chiefs of sections was a Peruvian or Bolivian who had been educated in England, frequently referred to.

After the exposure of the scandals the Peruvian Government sent a commission of its own to the Putumayo, which confirmed all that had been published. The principal official of this commission was Judge Paredes, the proprietor of El Oriente, an Iquitos newspaper; and he made a full report “embodying an enormous volume of testimony, of 3,000 pages involving wellnigh incredible charges of cruelty and massacre” and “issued 237 warrants” against the criminals, as stated in Sir Roger Casement’s Report. But between issuing warrants and actually making arrests and convictions, in South America, there is a wide gulf. Furthermore, Judge Paredes endeavoured, in a recent statement, to show[21] that the “English Rubber Company” was solely responsible for the atrocities, and that the English Consul at Iquitos has been aiding the guilty parties in keeping from the Peruvian Government an exact