30 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



D 



ecember 



10, 1920 



light, gathering in front of the bungalow above the village 

 to squat on their haunches until their names were called 

 by the native clerk and they stalked off to the jungle 

 workings. 



I could see my lofty fellows, closer to the stream than 

 I, bow one by one to the attack of the axe and saw, to 

 crash down into the heart of the jungle with a mighty, 

 thunderous roar. 1 could see that the black road-boys, 

 tunneling through the close-knit jungle, were getting 

 closer and closer to me as more of my fellows came down, 

 and from my eminence their progress seemed like the 

 underground burrowing of a mole. 



Finally they came to me, and 1 felt many black men 

 building a rough framework about my great buttress 

 roots. Then the 

 cutting of the saw 

 and bite of the axe 

 and 1 too, after 

 hundred years as 

 King of the Jungle, 

 was forced to bow 

 reigning for five 

 before the inevit- 

 able superior will 

 and enterprise of 

 man. 



Black men 

 swarmed over me 

 to cut away the 



upon the jungle, overflowing the creeks and rivers. Many 

 black men came again, this time in dugout canoes, led by 

 the white masters. With pike poles and pecivies they 

 wormed me, with hundreds of my companions, down the 

 narrow creeks to the main river. Watching us like treas- 

 ure, by night with the aid of flickering kerosene torches, 

 they kept us from straying over the banks of the swollen 

 stream into the treacherous overflow land, and drove us 

 down to the boom, about ten miles from the seacoast. 

 On the river in those strenuous days of the drive, I 

 know that our toll of life began, for I saw one black man 

 miss a grip vyfith his peavie and go down between the logs, 

 milling about in the mad, swirling waters of the river, and 

 1 never saw him again. 



After a rest of a 

 few weeks behind 

 the boom a num- 

 ber of us were 

 rafted and floated 

 on down, with 

 much less diffi- 

 culty, to the mouth 

 of the river, where 

 a steel cable was 

 placed about me 

 and 1 was hauled 

 by a steam vvrinch 

 up on the dressing 

 ground inside the 



Palm 

 Shaded 

 Storage 



Yard 



Logs ill cove at sea (.oast awaiting shipment 



•tangle of jungle vegetation I had brought to earth with 

 me and my proud length was sawn into five logs. So the 

 story from this point will be that of only a part of me. 



When the roller boys had placed many rollers cross- 

 ways upon the road cut through the jungle, timber dogs 

 were ruthlessly driven into my sides, ropes attached, and a 

 hundred native", yelling and howling as they pulled on the 

 long lines, dragged me forward. It was a mile and a half 

 to the nearest creek, and 1 weighed six tons, but the hun- 

 dred sweating blacks, led and incited by their headmen 

 and hornblowers, got me there in four hours. 



The creek was little more than the stream bed, for this 

 was in the dry month of February, and I lay for five 

 months, until the rainy season set in. Then the heavens 

 opened up and for days the torrential rain beat down 



Dugouts ready (oi the drive 



river bar, to be hewn square, for export to America. 



A few rp,ore weeks, and 1 was again put into the river 

 and placed in a raft. A powerful steam tug towed us out 

 over a cruel bar, which marked the turbulent resting place 

 of many a craft which the tumbling, white-crested breakers 

 had bested. But we survived the experience, with nothing 

 more than a severe pounding, to make the open sea and be 

 placed alongside the vessel, anchored over a mile out 

 from the dangerous rocky coast. 



Some of my fellows had been placed on great steamers, 

 but 1 was put on a little square-rigged sailing vessel, a 

 barque of only a thousand tons. Since 1 came alongside 

 in one of the last rafts to arrive I was hauled up and 

 chained fast on deck, the bowels of the boat being full 

 to capacity. 



