LOGGING MAHOGANY IN TROPICAL WEST AFRICA 



135 



man down with fist or club, and perhaps beat him un- 

 mercifully, an unresisting creature, without a word of ex- 

 planation, is the practice in places on this Coast, but less 

 so in the British protectorate than elsewhere. Neither 

 as manager nor as a man can I look upon the assault- 

 ing of one who is certain not to resist, as other than 

 cowardly and brutal. When one of our laborers fails to 

 do his duty or his work in a satisfactory manner, after 

 a fair trial he is dismissed and paid. Plenty to eat, prompt 

 payment, with a certain dismissal for cause, are forces 

 in the control of black labor, requiring no aid from vio- 

 lence. No difficulty has yet arisen with our labor that 

 one word from "Big Massa" did not settle without argu- 

 ment, nor any disturbance among themselves that a word 

 from the same authority did not quell and this without 

 threats of punishment or show of arms. 



In West Africa the success of logging in all its 

 branches depends to an unusual degree on the tact and 

 good judg- 

 ment, as well 

 as skill, of the 

 camp foreman 

 in immediate 

 charge of the 

 men. He 

 should be able 

 to know to a 

 nicety the 

 amount of 

 work in each 

 division that 

 may be accom- 

 plished, not to- 

 morrow or 

 next day, but 

 today. Know- 

 ing the size of 

 the trees to be 

 felled, the 

 m e a surement 

 of the logs to 

 be hauled and 

 the length and 

 condition of 

 the logging road, each set of workmen must be given its 

 task for the day. The axmen and the sawyers know 

 how many trees must be felled and how many logs cross- 

 cut, and the hauling teams the number of logs each 

 team must haul to the banking ground. Careful obser- 

 vation with experience, soon teaches the foreman the 

 amount of work of each kind the crew will do, working 

 the full day with everything favorable and the men 

 all seeming to be working with a will After a few 

 weeks of pushing them for a record, it is generally a 

 wise move to meet any indications of a feeling that they 

 are working too hard or too long hours, by a suggestion 

 that tasks or stunts will be given out and that when these 

 are finished for the day, the day's work is done. It will 

 be safe to add to the average day's work as much work 



WAITING FOR A HEAVY RAIN TO CARRY THE LOGS DOWN STREAM 



The water in the smaller streams frequently 

 raging torrent and 



as ten per cent and, on occasion, even more than this 

 and as a rule the stunts will be finished and the men in 

 camp long before the ordinary quitting time. The point 

 is that they are men and not brutes, and as each one is 

 desirous of doing something for himself, he puts into the 

 work not only his strength but his will power. He is 

 also, as he says, "a free man," even while at work. After 

 the work of the day is done, he certainly is free to till 

 his little patch of ground, visit his traps set in the creek 

 for crabs or his bush-trap set for dryland meat ; to bathe, 

 chop, dance or sleep ; and in order to enjoy these privi- 

 leges he goes at the work with his shoulder well up in 

 the collar, doing the work not like the unthinking horse, 

 but with intelligence and vim. The method is not free 

 from its problems required to be understood and solved. 

 Should the task prove to be lighter than the foreman 

 estimated, the crafty ones on the team are too wise to 

 finish the job too early, lest the foreman considerably 



increase f u- 

 ture tasks, so 

 they dally and 

 put in the 

 time, only ap- 

 p e a r i n g at 

 camp at a reas- 

 onable hour. 



The L i b e- 

 rian laborers 

 live on rice. 

 This is boiled 

 in large iron 

 pots and 

 served by 

 pouring out 

 into basins 

 the size of a 

 large w a s h- 

 bowl. This 

 rice is supple- 

 menlted, when 

 circumstanc e s 

 permit, with a 

 mixture of 

 palm oil, pep- 

 per pods pulled from the shrub, roots and succulent 

 sprouts of various palms and bamboo plants, leaves of 

 spicy and aromatic bushes, all crushed between two 

 stones rubbed one upon the other, the whole served in 

 another wash dish, in which are placed ready-cooked 

 crabs, snails, small fish and any other meats, the result 

 of their ingenious methods of catching these. The cook 

 places the two bowls on the ground side by side, the 

 men seat themselves within reach and each grabbing a 

 handful of rice rolls it dexterously into a ball, dips it 

 into the savory mixture, tosses it into a very wide open 

 mouth and repeats the operation until both bowls are 

 clean. Rice and salt, with a small sum of money to 

 each on Saturday, called by the men "fish money" is the 

 entire ration issued. The Gold Coast native does not eat 



rises in a few hours from a mere trickle to a 

 as quickly subsides. 



