MEN OF THE TREES 



generally, near the waterside. Labourers bring their wives 

 and families, and some of the boys are employed in carry- 

 ing food up into the forest to the men at their work. 



My series of photographs was obtained with consider- 

 able difficulty. It can readily be understood that in the 

 dense tropical forest, the light is extremely bad, and, 

 even with a very rapid lens, a long exposure is required. 

 And as the logs are more easily moved in the rainy sea- 

 son, the whole series, with two exceptions, was taken 

 while it was raining. I was specially fortunate in obtain- 

 ing some pictures of mottled mahogany. Occasionally 

 the timber prospector is rewarded by finding a tree with 

 a figure or mottle. Such mahogany is much sought after 

 for veneers, and is very rare. During my recent tour of 

 service, when I was in charge of the Benin Circle, 

 Southern Provinces, Nigeria, I issued a permit for a tree 

 which afterwards proved to be particularly well figured. 

 When a plank was cut and smoothed, it had the ap- 

 pearance of a rippled lake in a setting sun and was really 

 very beautiful. One log of this fetched ten thousand 

 dollars in the open market at Liverpool. Such a find is 

 a great reward for industry, but it may be that there is 

 only one such tree in five, or even ten, thousand, and 

 there is no outward indication of the inward beauty. 



Life in the mahogany forests is fraught with danger 

 and crowded with adventure. It is all the same whether 

 you are a prospector, in charge of concessions, a native 

 tree-finder in search of the big mahoganies, an ordinary 

 labourer, cutting the road of a corduroy track or felling 



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