LOGGING MAHOGANY IN TROPICAL WEST AFRICA 



139 



so they follow along the path and light up the water as 

 well as is possible for the men at work on the logs. At 

 the first alarm the foreman, taking with him a few men, 

 has hurried down the stream to the head of the jam, 

 where it lays as it was left on the sudden subsidence of a 

 preceding flood ; the remainder of the crew in charge of 

 the headman or native sub-foreman, are placed at the 

 several "bad places" in the creek and at the rear, and 

 all in readiness for the waters to rise to log-floating 

 stage. Torches are extinguished to save them for the 

 time of action. The "rise," if it comes at all, may last 

 for an hour, or possibly two, though rarely for five or 

 six but, shorter or longer, there is no stopping of the 

 work until the falling waters ground the logs on the 



ress a drizzling rain is likely to be falling and soon the 

 torch material becomes too damp to burn, though the na- 

 tives are very expert at keeping these alight under try- 

 ing conditions. When all have failed, the work must 

 perforce come to a standstill and, unless the catastrophe 

 has been anticipated in time, the crew may be left in 

 places where they must wait for dawn of day or a rescue 

 party from camp to relieve them from captivity. 



It may be asked why obstacles are not removed before 

 the work of driving begins. To this it may be said that 

 everything is cut and cleared away as high from the bed 

 of the creek as a man can, reach with his machete, the 

 work necessarily being done in the dry season, with little 

 or no water running. Tlie opening thus made through 



WEST AFR1C.'\N M.^'iHUG.'^N Y LUGGIXG CAMP CREW WITH WHITE FOREMAN 



bottom, there to remain in waiting for another rainfall. 

 The torch bearer's job is no sinecure. Often he is up 

 to his neck in water as the path crosses low places or 

 the mouths of small rivulets up which the back water 

 from the main stream sets far inland, and one hears the 

 sizzle of a torch suddenly extinguished as its bearer loses 

 his footing, it may be just when the non-swimmer is 

 negotiating a pole, one that he himself had placed to 

 serve as a bridge on just such an occasion as this one, 

 but now two feet under water. Should he scramble out 

 on the camp side of the bridge the chances are that he 

 will make a sneak and disappear in the darkness, depend- 

 ing on the nature of the individual, or whether his boss 

 is near enough to stop him. While the work is in prog- 



the forest, like a log road or trail, resembles a tunnel 

 with sides and roof of green. When the rains descend 

 and the floods come, when no man can work at creek 

 cleaning, the surface of the water on which the logs float 

 may be eight, ten or even fifteen feet higher than when 

 the dry season work of cleaning was done. The conse- 

 quences may prove disastrous to the rivermanas he passes 

 through one of these submerged tunnels, its roof under 

 water or so nearly so as to force the expert to take his 

 punishment lying down, the tunnel dark enough by day 

 and simply black at night, presenting a situation full of 

 uncertainties, and perhaps as replete with dangers un- 

 known, (always most trying to a man of courage), as 

 the passage through the Colorado Canon, a feat not 



