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 unworked. 
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, 
Chlorophora 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. 
