138 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



COMING INTO THE BANKING GROUND WITH A MAHOGANY lAJL. l.\ IRUl'lCAL W l,sl Al KlcA 



tion the logs are offered for sale, the only requisite before 

 delivery being an advance of cash to pay labor. In most 

 cases the advance is used for other purposes and the 

 logs lie and rot, serving meanwhile as a bait for further 

 advances from new purchasers. Along all floating rivers 

 and creeks, thousands of the finest and most available 

 mahoganys have been used in the making of canoes or 

 dugouts, such as the natives use for river travel and 

 transport. Other mediums of destruction have assisted 

 in so stripping the forests of their mahogany trees that 

 the logger is now obliged to utilize the smaller creeks 

 and tributaries and even here, though in lesser degree, 

 are found the same conditions. 



On the small streams one must rely entirely on rainfall 

 to drive logs to the main rivers. The more thorough the 

 work of preparing the bed of the stream, the less water 

 will be required, but at best the rains must fall. The heavy 

 showers do not, as a rule, time their coming to suit the 

 riverman. More often than otherwise, they begin to fall 

 late in the day from four to six o'clock. The rain may 

 fall in torrents for an hour or two and not perceptibly 

 raise the creek at the place the water is needed, being a 

 local shower not reaching any, of the country the drain- 

 age of which feeds the upper tributaries. The rains that 

 fall far up the creek and beyond the range of local ob- 

 servation are the ones to fumish the water to float the 

 logs. Throughout the season a watch must be kept 

 both night and day on the bank of the stream to notify 

 the foreman of a raise of water, and, if in the night, he 

 must rouse the men. It may be that all are asleep and 

 the camp as quiet as the night is dark. Comes the watch- 



man to the white man's bungalow with "Massa ! Massa ! 

 Water he live for come !" "Go quick ! ring bell !" is the 

 order, and in a moment the camp bell is sounding its 

 warning and the men are quickly astir and ready for the 

 work in hand. 



Without a path cut all along the bank and close to the 

 edge it would be impossible to get near the creek or to 

 the logs to work them, even in the day time. To ride the 

 floating rear at the tail of the jam is to invite collision 

 with the overhanging branches, vines and grasses with 

 edges like saw teeth, only to be swept at last into the 

 water. Under ordinary circumstances such an incident 

 would be an occasion for jokes and merriment to the 

 rivermen lucky enough to witness the chagrin of their 

 fellow, but here, with the swift running current, the 

 banks submerged and armed against approach by a net- 

 work of repelling brambles too flimsy and slender to sus- 

 tain the man who grasps them, and through which it 

 would be torture to penetrate if that were possible, the 

 situation of the driver is serious at best and in the night 

 conditions are present which in the matter of safety to 

 life and limb leave much to be desired. 



Before the dry season ends, a quantity of dry bamboo 

 has been gathered and stored under cover, split into nar- 

 row strips, tied into small bundles of suitable size for 

 use as torches, to light as far as is possible the river 

 drivers at their work. Lanterns are practically worth- 

 less, the light easily extinguished and failing in extremi- 

 ties and when life may depend upon a moment of light. 

 There is no need ever to want for volunteers to carry 

 these torches, as plenty of the bushmen "no savey swim," 



