LOGGING MAHOGANY IN TROPICAL WEST AFRICA 



133 



wages, and just before the beginning of the rainy season, 

 when the men are most needed and there is no time to 

 fill their places, they demand a settlement and payment 

 of wages due. As nothing is due to the jobber, the white 

 man refuses further advances; the jobber has spent the 

 money ; the laborers leave the work ; and when the driv- 

 ing water comes the logs are left to come or stay, most of 

 them stay. The high waters overflow the river banks, 

 the floating timbers take to the woods and when the 

 waters recede, are left in inaccessible places, hard to find 

 and the cost of returning them to the bank is greater than 

 to cut and haul new wood. The crew may bring suit and 



Gold Coast is imported from Liberia and mostly from 

 that district known as the Kru country. 



The Government of Liberia demands a fee of five dol- 

 lars a head for each man taken out of its country. To 

 secure laborers from that country an agent must be sent 

 to engage the required number and ship them on the 

 first steamer calling at the port. Passage money is paid 

 and on landing at Axim the entire party is lined up in 

 front of the office, sorted into sizes and graded by ap- 

 parent capacity for hard labor, names taken and wages 

 fixed for the year on each grade and each individual, and 

 the entire lot taken before the District Commissioner, 



CALLING THE ROLL IN A M.AHOGANY CAMP IN TROPICAL WEST AFRICA 



Most of the native workmen are secured from Liberia, the government of which country requires the payment of a tax of 

 five dollars each for every laborer who is allowed to leave to work in another country. 



attach the logs where they are, but there is not any real 

 value and both wages and logs are lost. These and 

 similar misadventures do not serve to inspire confidence 

 of natives in employers of labor. 



In beginning active logging, I declined to make ad- 

 vances or to let contracts, insisting on the American 

 plan of doing business, hiring men for a twelve-month 

 term on monthly wages, payable at the end of every 

 three months. The people very soon learned that we had 

 come to stay and that the i)ay was sure and the system 

 gave entire satisfaction. The major part of labor on the 



who asks each one as he touches the pen to verify his 

 signature by mark, "You 'gree?" If the man can say 

 yes he does so, if not he grins and retires down the line. 

 The head man of the gang usually speaks for all. The 

 days of waiting for a steamer at the point of departure 

 and the two days of practical fasting en route, result in 

 a very lank and hungry looking company and the change 

 in their appearance after a week or two with the new 

 Massa is remarkable. The Kru-men or, as they are 

 called Kru-boys and this regardless of age, are either 

 beach men or bush men, the former best for boatmen 



