THE RIVER THAT GOD FORGOT

Up the Amazon some 1000 miles from the Atlantic, a town built on rubber, Manaus, sported prices four times those of New York in 1907. Richard Collier tells the story of the boom and the dark history behind it as he records the fortunes of Julio Cesar Arana, empire builder on the Putomayo for the British based and directed Peruvian Amazon Company. Arana's power was challenged by young American Walter E. Hardenburg, who travelled from Brazil to England to publish his findings of forced labor, torture, and murder of the Indian population by Arana's men. Further investigations, notably those of Sir Roger Casement, followed and led to a hearing before Parliament in which Arano was at last put down, Harden-burg's smirched name cleared. By this time the Amazon boom had bust--the rubber seeds shipped out from Santarem in quantity by some far-seeing Englishmen and replanted in Asia had matured. The days when high-stepping Arab horses were watered with Cordon Rouge and Indian laborers were scarred with the de Arana were over. A tale of ambition and violence countered by high-minded determination in a far place, researched across 25,000 miles, told with graphic verbatim values rather than style.