Work, then, has, as a rule, to be carried on in a primitive way, and this for the further reason, also, that only primitive men can be got for labourers, and not a sufficient number even of them. The introduction of Annamites and Chinese has been talked of, but it is a hopeless proposal. Foreigners are of no use in the African forest, because they cannot endure the heat and the camp life in it, and, moreover, cannot live on the foods produced locally.
The choice of a site for work
The first thing to be done is to choose the right place for work. In the virgin forest the trees grow in the most capricious fashion, and it pays to fell them only where there is near the water's edge a considerable number of the kind of trees required. These places are generally some distance within the forest, but when the river is high, are usually connected with the latter by some narrow watercourse, or by a pond, which at such times becomes a lake. The natives know well enough where these places are, but they keep the knowledge to themselves, and make a point of misleading any white man who comes into their neighbourhood to look for them. One European told me that the natives of a certain village kept taking from him for two months liberal presents of brandy, tobacco, and cloth while they went out with him every day on the search for such a place, but not a single one was discovered which seemed to promise profitable exploitation. At last, from a conversation which he happened to overhear, he learnt that they purposely took him past all the favourable spots, and then their friendly relations came to a sudden end. Of the timber that stands near enough to the river to be easily transported, nearly the whole has already been felled.
About half the forest area has been put, through concessions, into the hands of big European companies. The rest is free, and any one, white or black, can fell timber there as he pleases. But even in the woodlands covered by the concessions the companies often allow the natives to fell trees as freely as they can in the other parts, on the one condition that they sell the timber to the company itself, and not to other dealers.
The important thing, after all, is not to own woods, but to have timber for sale, and the timber which the negroes cut down on their own account and then offer to the company works out cheaper than what the latter get through their contract labour. On the other hand, the supply from the free natives is so uncertain that it cannot be relied upon for trade purposes. They may take it into their heads to celebrate a festival, or to have a big fishing expedition just when the demand for timber is greatest, so the companies, while they buy all they can from the natives, also keep their own labourers constantly at work.
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When a suitable spot has been discovered, there come to it either the men of a village who have agreed to exploit it together, or the white man with his labourers, and huts are erected to live in. The great difficulty is food. One is faced with the problem of securing supplies for from sixty to one hundred men for weeks and months together, and that in the middle of the virgin forest. The nearest village and the nearest plantations are perhaps twenty-five miles away, and only to be reached by a weary struggle through jungle and swamp. Unfortunately, too, the staple foods of banana and manioc[[1]] are bulky, and therefore troublesome to transport; moreover, they only keep good for a few days. The great drawback attaching to Equatorial Africa is that none of its food products keep long. Bananas and manioc ripen the whole year through, now freely, now sparingly, according to the time of year, but bananas go bad six days after gathering, and manioc bread ten days after it is made. The manioc root by itself is unusable, as there are poisonous species which contain cyanic acid, to get rid of which the roots are soaked for some days in running water. Stanley lost three hundred carriers because they too hastily ate manioc root which had not been washed long enough. When it is taken out of the water it is crushed and rubbed, and undergoes fermentation, and this produces a kind of tough, dark dough, which is moulded into thin sticks and wrapped in leaves for preservation. Europeans find this a very poor food.
[[1]] Manioc, better known perhaps to English readers as cassava, belongs to the Euphorbiaceæ. The two chief kinds are Manihot utilissima, the bitter, which contains the hydrocyanic acid, and Manihot Aipi, the sweet, which is harmless. The roots are 3 feet long and 6 to 9 inches in diameter, filled with milky juice. The starch as prepared for food is known first as Brazilian arrowroot, and this, when further prepared, as the tapioca of commerce. (Encycl. Brit., s.v.)
Life on the chosen site
Since, then, the regular provision of local foodstuffs is so difficult, these native timber workers have to reconcile themselves to living on rice and preserved foods from Europe. This means mostly cheap tins of sardines, prepared specially for export to the inland regions of Africa, and of these the stores always have a big supply in stock. Variety is secured by means of tinned lobster, tinned asparagus, and Californian fruits. The expensive tinned stuff which the well-to-do European denies himself as too expensive, the negro, when felling timber, eats from necessity!