Every year exploring expeditions go to the Beni, penetrate its forests, find new tributaries to its rivers, examine its sierras, and bring back wonderful stories of gold mines and precious stones in abundance, of rich pasture lands and agricultural valleys, of great forests of hardwood, medicinal plants, and tropical fruits, and crowning all, of unlimited treasures in rubber, one of the most important articles in the world of commerce.

From the southwestern border of the department of El Beni, where it is separated from La Paz and Cochabamba by the foothills of the Royal Range, to the eastern and northern limits, where it is divided from Brazil by the Guaporé River and from the Territorio de Colonias by the Beni, the climate and products of this fertile zone vary greatly. This fact accounts for the conflicting stories which are heard regarding the country. Explorers and prospectors who travel in the western and southern part of the department, in the region of Rurrenabaque, Santa Ana, and Trinidad are generally enthusiastic about the climate and great fertility of the soil for the purposes of agriculture, while those who make the rubber forests their chief destination frequently complain that the climate is unhealthy and the country an undesirable place to live in. In reality, the Beni, as it is popularly called, includes all kinds of climate and every description of natural conditions. It covers an area of two hundred and sixty-five thousand square kilomètres, and is divided into four provinces: Cercado, of which the department capital, Trinidad, is the chief city; Yacuma, with its capital, Santa Ana, near the junction of the Yacuma River with the Mamoré; Iténez, of which the capital is Magdalena, on the San Miguel, or Itonamas, River, a few leagues south of its junction with the Guaporé; and Vaca Diez, with its capital, Riberalta, at the confluence of the Madre de Dios and Beni Rivers, near the extreme northern limit of the department. Each of these provinces has its distinguishing features.

In every department of Bolivia the province in which the capital is situated is called Cercado, equivalent to “environs,” and, as a rule, it is the most populous of the provincial divisions. The Cercado of the Beni is sometimes called the province of Mojos, the name by which the whole department was known when it constituted a dependency of the Audiencia of Charcas. When Gonzalo Pizarro and his followers made explorations in this region soon after the conquest, they found it inhabited by Indians of the Mojos tribes, and the founder of Trinidad, Don Pedro de Zúñiga y Velasco, brother of the Count of Nieva, chose the site for the town on the spot where prehistoric ruins marked the former existence of a palace, which, the Indians explained, had once been the residence of “the Great Mojo.” As the town was founded on Trinity Sunday, in the year 1562, it was given the name of Santisima Trinidad, though, when El Beni was created a department in 1842, its capital was named simply Trinidad. The principal means of transportation in this, as in all the other provinces of the Beni, is by river boats, and travellers who wish to go to Trinidad find the best route by way of Cochabamba. A very interesting book, written to describe a journey made to the Acre territory in 1900 by a military commission under the command of the present president of the republic, General Montes, then colonel of the army and minister of war, gives an excellent idea of this region of the Beni. The author, Don José Aguirre Achá, was one of the officers of the commission, and his vivid picture of the territory and its people has the double merit of being accurate and entertaining. After leaving the city of Cochabamba, the usual route lies through the Yungas, or Yuracarés, to the north as far as the river San Antonio, a branch of the Chaparé, which is navigable for small canoes only; larger craft do not ascend the Chaparé beyond the river port of Santa Rosa, on the boundary between the departments of Cochabamba and El Beni. The small canoes which are used on the San Antonio and other streams of this vicinity are generally the property of the Yuracaré Indians, who carry passengers down the river or across to the opposite bank. They are summoned by the discharge of a gun, which brings the Indian quickly to the spot. The Yuracaré boatman wears a single short garment which is called a tipoy, though, unlike the Paraguayan dress of that name, it is not white in color, and is very heavy, being made of a kind of fibrous bark. It covers the body and shoulders only, leaving the arms and legs bare. From the port of Santa Rosa, the canoes which the Yuracarés use in descending the river Chaparé to the Mamoré are longer and heavier than those of other small rivers in the Beni, and measure from forty to fifty feet in length and five feet in width. They are made of the trunks of trees, which are hollowed by burning them out. Five Indians are usually employed in rowing one of these boats, while a pilot stands at the stern to direct its course. Señor Aguirre Achá says that one of these primitive canoes will carry more than five thousand pounds of cargo. Larger boats, called batelones, are sometimes used for heavy cargo, and are very common on the rivers of eastern Beni. They carry four times as much as the canoes just mentioned, and measure about twenty-five feet long by eight feet wide and about three feet in average depth. They are of more complicated construction also, and have a space protected by an awning. The scenery of this region is intensely tropical, the rivers being bordered to the water’s edge by palm trees and ferns. At the junction of the Chaparé with the Chimoré, a navigable river at the headwaters of which is situated a port that will soon be connected by railway with the city of Cochabamba, the river takes the name of Mamorécillo, or little Mamoré, and from this point the traffic steadily increases, canoes, batelones, and other craft passing one another in rapid succession. The balsa is frequently seen, as well as the callapo, which is made by joining two or three balsas together. Alligators abound in these waters, and parrots of brilliant plumage are seen everywhere. Fish of great variety and infinite abundance are found here, and many species of small game afford entertainment for sportsmen. The Rio Grande enters the Mamoré, or rather the Mamorécillo, a few leagues below Trinidad, deepening and widening the latter for a considerable distance.

The city of Trinidad, the capital of the Beni, is situated a few miles distant from the main current of the Mamoré, near a small tributary, the Ibary. The city has about five thousand inhabitants, though its population varies at different seasons of the year, depending chiefly on transient passengers to and from the rubber regions. It is the great highway for all traffic from Cochabamba and Santa Cruz to the Madeira River ports. The many small steamboats which ply up and down the Mamoré call at Trapiche, which is an aduanilla and the port of Trinidad, the town itself being situated two leagues from the river. As the chief interest of its citizens, as well as transient visitors, is centred in the rubber country, little attention has hitherto been paid to public improvements or to the beautifying of the town, though a spirit of enterprise has recently developed in its people which promises well for future progress.

The province of Yacuma has the magnificent climate of the Yungas in its southern extremity, the heat gradually becoming more excessive toward the north where its rich rubber lands adjoin those of the neighboring province of Vaca Diez. Through the port of Rurrenabaque, in Yacuma, on the Beni River, large shipments of cacao, cocoa, tobacco, and other products are made annually, the Beni being one of the most favored regions in the world for the cultivation of cacao. The chocolate made from the cacao of the Beni requires no foreign flavor, such as vanilla and cinnamon, which are frequently used in its manufacture from cacao of an inferior quality. It is equal to the best in the world. Cacao trees in the Beni require little cultivation, they bear within four years after planting and are most prolific when ten or twelve years old. They yield two crops annually, the best districts producing from thirty to forty pounds of cacao per tree. With greater attention this industry would provide a very important source of revenue to Bolivia, which is exporting the article in increasing quantities every year. Another industry of promising future is tobacco growing, which is extremely profitable in this department. Several varieties are cultivated, such as “Havana,” “black Havana,” “Criollo,” “lettuce leaf,” and “ox tongue,” but the production is insignificant compared with the possibilities for development. The annual yield of all tobacco plantations of Bolivia is estimated at three million five hundred thousand pounds, the Beni supplying only a small share of the output, but the exportation does not exceed fifty thousand pounds.

The greatest industry of the Beni is rubber gathering, which is carried on in every province, chiefly along the courses of the Beni River and its tributaries. All through the upper Beni the trees are found, and new companies are constantly being organized for the purpose of further exploring this region and getting possession of valuable rubber-producing districts. A special law governs the acquirement of rubber lands in Bolivia, rubber trees being the property of the state. Everybody, foreign and native alike, has the right to exploit the uncultivated bosques in which these valuable trees are found, the discoverer of trees having the preferred right to ownership, providing that he presents his petition for the concession before the competent authority within one hundred and eighty days after the discovery. The Delegado Nacional of the Territorio de Colonias and the prefects of the departments have authority to adjudicate as much as five hundred estradas, or paths, to each individual,—the rubber properties being divided into paths to which the trees on each side for a certain distance belong,—and one thousand estradas to a legally organized company. Petitions for a larger concession can only be granted by Congress. Every concessionary must pay the sum of fifteen bolivianos for each estrada, at the rate of one boliviano annually for fifteen years, in order to establish his claim to the property, under penalty of losing all rights, though the total payment may be made before the expiration of the fifteen years if preferred. The estrada is comprised in a group of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty rubber trees. The roads which lead to the rubber properties are free to the public, as well as navigation on the rivers and the use of the bosques on the river banks. The work-man in the rubber forests is not merely a laborer for hire, but exercises the privileges of an explorer and contractor, who, when he finds new trees, marks them as his own and contracts for the sale of them or for their exploitation. In addition to the high price he gets for his daily labor and for his discoveries, usually receiving all amounts in gold, his employer provides him with food and other necessaries at a reasonable price. The improvidence of rubber gatherers is proverbial, however, and many of them spend their money before it is earned.

The rubber trees of the Upper Beni average eight feet in height and two feet in diameter, though trees are occasionally met with which tower up to a hundred feet high and are more than three feet thick. A distinctive feature of these rubber trees is that they have no branches except at the top, and the bright green of their leaves, with the reddish color which the new leaves show, makes the trees easily distinguishable at a distance, especially when they appear in groups. The moisture by which the tree is sustained and which is so necessary for the production of its latex, as the rubber sap is called, is received in part from the soil, but chiefly from the atmosphere, the tree drinking in through its trunk and branches the humidity which is permanently conserved in the air by the deep shade of the bosque. Señor E. Gonzales, of one of the large rubber companies of Bolivia, has made many interesting observations regarding this fact in the rubber forests of his company, which extend over a territory of about four million acres at Suapi Central, in the Upper Beni. According to his statement the rubber trees, whatever their size and the locality in which they are found, when tapped for the first time give only a few drops of latex, the flow increasing little by little with repeated incisions, and being at first so very dense that it is coagulated by contact with the air, even when the trees are tapped at the height of the rainy season. If the production of the new trees growing in distinct regions is compared, as, for instance, in the dry part of Suapi Central and in the more humid section of San Miguel, it is found that a greater quantity of latex is taken from the trees in the moist atmosphere than in the dry. However great the amount of rainfall may be, little moisture is retained in the ground because of the impenetrable character of the soil, which is of chalky composition. Furthermore, on the steep slopes of the quebradas in the Upper Beni the water from rainfalls does not remain long enough to sink into the ground, but is immediately carried down innumerable streams, every crevice being converted into a river course during the rainy season. In the Lower Beni, on the other hand, the trees remain submerged in water for months at a time, the land, which is composed of mud to a depth of several mètres, retaining an enormous amount of moisture. The quantity of latex produced bears no relation to the period of rainfall, but only to the density of moisture of the atmosphere. The average amount of latex collected by tapping is the same on the plains along a river course as on the cumbres, or summits, of the hills. After a rubber tree is cut down, its leaves remain fresh for about fifteen days, little by little losing their color from that time until they finally die and drop off. The life of the trunk of the tree seems concentrated in the upper part, to such an extent that if tapped in the middle it yields no latex, only the extreme branches containing a thick sap. Even when the tree has apparently succumbed, and the insects are already destroying it, two days’ rain will work a wonderful change, the renewed moisture of the atmosphere causing the latex to issue in a cream color from all the incisions and from the holes bored by the insects. An examination of rubber trees which are completely exposed to the sun, not surrounded by other trees or entwined by ivy, shows that, in spite of heavy rains and repeated tappings at different heights, only a few drops of yellowish latex is secured, and this of such thick consistency that it coagulates immediately.

The first tapping is done in the months of October, November, December, January, and February. The trees then rest during March, the second tapping season including the months of April, May, June, and July, after which the trees rest again during August and September. The process of treating the latex by smoking it, twirling it around a stick until it solidifies in the form of a ball about fifteen inches in diameter, which is called a bolacha, is very well known. In the Lower Beni the seasons for collecting rubber are shorter than in regions higher up the river courses, because of heavier rains and floods.

There are vast tracts of rubber lands in the Beni which have never been explored, and the present annual output of Bolivian rubber, which amounts to nearly three thousand tons, will be greatly increased as new rubber districts are developed. The value of the rubber exported annually averages about half a million pounds sterling. But, although this industry absorbs the chief attention of all who live in the Beni, and attracts new investments constantly, yet it has not entirely prevented the development of other forest industries. Considerable capital is employed in the exploitation of hardwoods, medicinal plants, and spices. From all the provinces, through the ports of Trinidad, Santa Ana, Magdalena, and Riberalta, large quantities of mahogany, rosewood, ebony, cedar, logwood, gum, cork, and other products of the tropical forests are shipped down the Madeira River and via the Amazon to foreign markets. There are few countries in the world possessing a greater variety of commercial products.