Another method of exploiting these unfortunate Indians takes the form of selling them as slaves in Iquitos, and this business in human flesh yields excellent returns to the company or its employees, for they are sold in that capital at from £20 to £40 each. Every steamer that goes to Iquitos, loaded with the rubber from the Putumayo, carries from five to fifteen little Indian boys and girls, who are torn, sobbing, from their mothers' arms without the slightest compunction. These little innocents, as we have already said, are sold at wholesale and retail by this "civilising company" in Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto, the second port of a country that calls itself Christian, republican, civilised, and, let it be well understood, with the knowledge, consent, and approval of the authorities there.
But to relate all the crimes and infamies committed in this tragic region by this company and its employees in its almost incredible persecution and exploitation of the Indians, would prove an interminable task, so many are the crimes committed in this devil's paradise.
The following are the directors of the Peruvian Amazon Company[108]:--
HENRY M. READ, 4 Lancaster Gate Terrace, Hyde Park, London, W.
SIR JOHN LISTER KAYE, Bart., 26, Manchester Square, London, W.
JOHN RUSSEL GUBBINS, Esq., 22, Carlton Hill, London, N.W.
BARON DE SOUSA DEIRO, Chairman of Goodwin, Ferreira Company, Ltd., Manchester.
M. HENRI BONDUEL, Banker, Rue d'Aumale, Paris.
SEÑOR ABEL ALARCO, Salisbury House, London, E.C., managing director.
The secretary is Walter Bramall, F.C.I.S., and the registered office of this Christian and humanitarian syndicate is at Salisbury House, London Wall, London, E.C.
Of these seven directors, there are at least two who are well aware of the state of affairs in their "possessions," who are far better informed than I am of the murders, the robberies, the flagellations, the violations of little eight and ten year old girls, the tortures, the incredible mutilations, and the other stupendous crimes committed by this company and its employees in the terrible Putumayo. These criminal employees are not restrained by Julio César Arana and the manager in Iquitos, his brother-in-law, Pablo Zumaeta, but, on the contrary, are actually aided and encouraged by these monsters in their horrible work.