II2 
VII. SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE FOREST 
among primitive races, and nowhere are they paid so 
well in proportion to the work they do in return. This 
comes from their laziness, people say ; but is the negro 
really so lazy ? Must we go a little deeper into the 
problem. 
Any one who has seen the population of a native 
village at work, when they have to clear a piece of virgin 
forest in order to make a new plantation, knows that 
they are able to work enthusiastically, and with all 
their might, for weeks together. This hardest of all 
work, I may say in passing, is forced upon every 
village triennially. The banana exhausts the soil with 
extraordinary rapidity, so that every three years they 
must lay out a new plantation, manured by the ashes 
of the jungle, which they cut down and burn. For 
my part I can no longer talk ingenuously of the 
laziness of the negro after seeing fifteen of them spend 
some thirty-six hours in almost uninterrupted rowing 
in order to bring up the river to me a white man who 
was seriously ill. 
The negro, then, under certain circumstances works 
well, but — only so long as circumstances require it. 
The child of nature — here is the answer to the puzzle — 
is always a casual worker. 
In return for very little work nature supplies the 
native with nearly everything that he requires for his 
support in his village. The forest gives him wood, 
bamboos, raffia leaves, and bast for the building of a 
hut to shelter him from sun and rain. He has only to 
plant some bananas and manioc, to do a little fishing 
and shooting, in order to have by him all that he really 
needs, without having to hire himself out as a labourer 
and to earn regular wages. If he does take a situation. 
