io8 VI. LUMBERMEN AND RAFTSMEN 
tremendous, and the lagoons near the mouth of the 
Ogowe are veritable timber graveyards. Hundreds and 
hundreds of gigantic tree trunks stick out of the mud 
there, the majority being trees which could not be got 
away at the right time and were left to rot, till a bigger 
flood than usual carried them out to the river. When 
they got to the bay, wind and tide carried them into the 
lagoons, from which they will never emerge. At this 
present minute I can count, with the help of my glasses, 
some forty trunks which are tossing about in the bay, 
to remain the plaything of ebb and flood and wind 
till they find a grave either in the lagoons or in the 
ocean. 
As soon as the raft has been safely delivered the crew 
make haste to get back up the river, either in their 
canoe or in a steamer, in order that they may not 
starve in Cape Lopez, for all the fresh provisions in the 
port town have to be brought some 125 miles down the 
river from the interior, since nothing of the kind can be 
grown in the sands of the coast or the marshes of the 
river mouth. When they have got back home, and 
have been paid off by the purchaser of the timber, 
quantities of tobacco, brandy, and all sorts of goods are 
bought by them at the latter’s store. As rich men, 
according to native notions, they return to their villages, 
but in a few weeks, or even earlier, the whole of the 
money has run through their fingers, and they look out 
for a new place at which to begin their hard work over 
again. 
The export of timber from Cape Lopez is increasing 
steadily ; at the present time (1914) it amounts to 
about 150,000 tons a year. The chief sorts dealt in are 
mahogany, which the natives call ombega, and okoume 
