48 BRITISH HONDURAS. 



heavy load. Sometimes mahogany logs are drawn, in the manner 

 above described, distances of 8 or 10 miles. 



Mahogany is always trucked in the middle of the night, the 

 cattle not being able to perform such laborious work during the 

 heat of the day. It is a picturesque and striking scene, this 

 midnight trucking. 



" The lowing of the oxen, the creaking of the wheels, the 

 shrill cries of the men, the resounding cracks of their whips, 

 and the red glare of the pine torches in the midst of the dense, 

 dark forest, produce an effect approaching to sublimity." 



At the works the logs are regularly squared and prepared 

 for the market. 



If, however, they are likely to be chafed and injured in 

 transit, by going down shallow creeks, the squaring is done at 

 Belize, or at the river's mouth. 



Trucking is generally carried on during the months of April 

 and May, when the ground is hard after a long period of dry 

 weather. About the middle of June, after the May " seasons," 

 or rains, the rivers are swollen, and advantage is taken of this 

 opportunity to tumble the logs into the water, and float them 

 down to about 10 miles from the river's mouth. Here a large 

 iron chain, or " boom," is fixed, which stops the logs as they 

 float down. At this point the several owners select the logs by 

 their respective marks, form them into rafts, and so float them 

 down to the sea, and ultimately to Belize, whence they are 

 shipped abroad. 



Logwood cutting appears to be a much simpler and much less 

 laborious work. After the trees, which are seldom more than a foot 

 in diameter, but often only half this size, are cut down, the outer 

 or sap wood is removed, leaving nothing but the inner dark- 

 coloured heart wood. When thus prepared, the logwood is 

 carried on trucks or " crooked " to the nearest bank, where, to 



