FORESTERS’ LIFE IN BURMA 171 
during my Burma service by my acquaintance with 
the leaders of the B.B.T.C., who knew all that there 
was to know about the exploitation of the forest, and 
were at all times ready to give every information, as 
well as to settle any disputed matters, with courtesy 
and liberality. 
The general method of removing the felled timber 
is to drag it by elephants to a neighbouring water- 
course which it is expected will be heavily flooded 
during the monsoon; should this hope be realized, 
the jumble of logs is accompanied by elephants, who 
refloat such as may be stranded, and, when a jam 
occurs, relieve it, often at the risk of life. In this 
way the teak logs at last enter the great river 
Irrawadi, or one of its affluents, such as the Chind- 
win, and are then tied into rafts with cane ropes 
before the journey to Rangoon is undertaken. On 
the way adventures are not uncommon; the rafts 
may be stranded or may break up, and in these 
circumstances it becomes difficult to protect or 
recover the drifting logs from the practised river 
thieves, who are always on the alert, either to 
quickly bury their find in the sand, or even more 
rapidly to saw it up, so that the marks of ownership 
may be obliterated. The laws governing forest 
produce in transit by water are necessarily strict in 
Burma, but whether they were quite effective in the 
absence of organized river police is doubtful; it is 
probable that were such a body supplied with swift 
launches its cost would have been soon recouped, 
and the morality of the river population considerably 
improved. The teak logs on arrival at Rangoon are 
brought into depot, where again the elephant proves 
