16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



April 10. 1922 



from the States for camp foremen, importing laborers (mostly from 

 the head hunting region in Liberia), opening logging camps, cleaning 

 creeks, cluirteriiuj and loading steamers, the ofttimes heartbreaking 

 handicaps incident to a strictly pioneer proposition, were things that 

 made the undertaking unique." — The Editor. 



THERE are many features incident to getting out mahogany 

 logs in tropical West Africa, and many difficulties to be over- 

 come from the stump to the hold of a cargo steamer enroute to the 

 mills in the United States. 



The title to the trees must first be secured from the native chief, 

 and this alone presents problenxs to be solved by the white man. 

 For many years the natives have shipped squared mahogany 

 timber to the Liverpool market, and trees of the size required to 

 comply with the Colonial Forestry regulations, nine feet in cir- 



dents and exciting adventures, but I will present as briefly as I 

 may, the methods by which the logs are gathered in such quanti- 

 ties, brought to the shipping point and placed on board the char- 

 tered steamers. The entire enterprise aptly has been termed a 

 pioneer proposition, and to describe its working developments we 

 will start at the stump. 



The foundation tor a logging operation has already been laid 

 by the ownership of the timber, and with an unlimited supply of 

 the sinews of war always at command, the next important problem 

 to be solved is the question of labor. The term labor has, on this 

 coast, an unusual significance, covering as it does, not only manual, 

 but as well the work commonly performed by horses, mules, oxen 

 or by steam power. The native of the Gold Coast is not running 

 about looking for a job in a logging camp, preferring to fish, hunt, 



By courtesy of the AmericaD ForeeUT Magazine, Wafihlnirtim. P. C. 



CLEARING THE WOODS TO BUILD A LOGGING CAMP 

 The Mahogany logging camps in West Africa are constructed to last for several years and to hold hundreds of native workers, and must be so arranged 



that different tribes or various clans of tribesmen may be somewhat separated 



cumference, are not plentiful near to the banks of log-driving 

 streams. Having secured a goodly supply of trees, I began the 

 work of organizing logging operations on a scale sufficient to 

 furnish five to six million feet to the mills in the United States 

 annually. 



No white man accustomed to logging work was to be found on 

 the coast. Neither cattle nor horses can live there; there are no 

 factories or shops t<. .supply the requisite tools; no streams cleared 

 and fit for driving logs; no booms in the Ancobra for holding logs 

 in time of freshets; no harbor in which steamers can take cargo, 

 which must be brought alongside in the open sea. It is four weeks 

 by mail to the home office; one month by supply steamer from Eng- 

 lish ports, with countless minor difficulties to meet and new ones 

 continually cropping up, so I may be pardoned for suggesting that 

 this was rather a large order. 



Each one of the great cargoes and each individual log in it has 

 a history that would, if told, be of interest and full of strange inci- 



trade or to do nothing, letting his wives support him by their labor 

 or by their wits, for the women are very keen as merchants. The 

 main incentive for the young man to labor for wages is to earn 

 the money with which to buy a few wives, the which accomplished, 

 he needs not to toil nor spin. Another obstacle in the way of 

 securing labor is the lack of confidence in the matter of payment 

 of wages when due. It seems that both natives and Europeans 

 who heretofore have essayed to get out logs, either failed to bring 

 their logs to a shipping point or, if succeeding in this, forwarded 

 the lot to the Liverpool market; the laborer being forced to wait 

 for the return from brokers' sales, and these more often than 

 otherwise showing a debit balance for freight and selling charges. 

 Another and prevailing feature of hiring did not meet our ap- 

 proval; the practice being perhaps made necessary by this same 

 lack of confidence, to pay each man on hiring six months' wages in 

 advance, no more to be paid until the end of the twelve months' 

 term of hire. This plan had its advantages and its disadvantages 



