82 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 



a mile from water is too far for a native working almost single-handed, 

 and only collecting a few labourers for hauling his logs to the waterway. 

 In recent years, however, British as well as French firms, with 

 a larger amount of capital, have started to work the forests. Regula- 

 tions have been drawn up by the local Government in a similar manner 

 and of a similar nature to those in force generally on the West Coast 

 of Africa. The Government also has built a railway passing through 

 and near some of the forests north of Grand Bassam. Since its 

 inception, a further impetus has been given to the mahogany trade. 

 However, in the matter of water transport, the rivers of the Ivory 

 Coast, such as the Tano, mostly flowing in British territory, but 

 emptying itself into the sea at Assinie (the port for logs in French 

 territory), the Yar or Abi, the Komoe, the Zini, and Bandana, the 

 Sassandra and Cavally, can none of them be said to be at all good 

 for the floating out of logs. La Hou is the port for the Bandana and 

 Zini Rivers, after their junction ; Sassandra is the port for the Sassandra 

 and Cavally for the Cavally. At the mouth of each of them there 

 is a shallow bar, and this in turn causes a bad surf, and in other parts 

 the coast lacks harbours, and the formation of it is unsuitable for 

 the shipment of timber. No doubt, as time goes on, an effective means 

 will be invented for dealing with the passage of the logs through the 

 surf, especially at the mouths of rivers. So far, from all accounts, 

 the rivers themselves have not been cleared of snags and rocky 

 obstructions for the transport of the timber. This factor again has 

 reacted on the output, and many of the finest forests remain un worked. 

 Owing to the fact of this accidental policy of only cutting the best 

 mahogany trees, the intensive exploitation of the forests by cutting 

 other species of trees (the timber of which has already found a market 

 in Europe) has been greatly hindered. Among such timbers are 

 the following : 



Khaya Ivoriensis, 



Chloropliora excelsa, 



Lophira alata, 



Afzelia microcarpa, 



Entandrophragma macrophylla, 



Canarium Schweinfurthii, or Occidentalis. 



On the whole, English firms working on the Ivory Coast have been 

 encouraged and not hindered, but some of the minor regulations appear 

 to be rather irksome and vexatious in their working, and the firms 

 have felt that their tenure of the forest rights was not quite so secure 

 as elsewhere in West Africa. 



The export duties placed on mahogany cut on the banks of the 

 Tano in Gold Coast territory are almost of such a nature as to prohibit 

 the profitable working of the Tano forests. 



