Friday, March 18th.—Left the yacht about seven o'clock. Mr. Hodgkinson took us to see a timber-yard, where elephants are extensively used. It was a wonderful exhibition of strength, patience, and dexterity. The docile creatures lift, roll, and push the logs of timber to any part of the yard. They pile it up into stacks high above their heads, seizing one end of a log with their trunk, placing it on the pile of timber, and then taking the other end of the log and pushing it forward, finally placing it on their heads, and sending it into its place. They work undisturbed amid the buzz of circular saws and machinery, where it would seem almost impossible for animals of such huge proportions to escape injury. They carry their intelligence to the point of rigidly enforcing the rights of labour. Nothing will persuade an elephant to do a stroke of work, after he has heard the workmen's dinner-bell, during the hour of midday rest to which he rightly considers himself entitled. Their mental powers seem, indeed, to be very nearly on a level with those of the human workmen, with whose efforts their own are combined. No less than two thousand elephants were formerly employed in the yard of the Bombay and Burmah Company. Steam machinery is now rapidly superseding elephants, for each animal requires at least three men to look after him.
Elephants at Work
We quitted the Bombay and Burmah Trading Company's teak-yard, most grateful to Mr. Jones, the manager, for his kind reception. Then our party divided, some going to see the pagoda, and others to see the rice-mills. At this season of the year the mill-hands are at work night and day, while from November to February the mills are as a rule closed. In the establishment which we visited a hundred tons of rice are turned out every twelve hours, several processes having to be gone through before the 'paddy' is converted into 'white rice' of the first quality.
While rice is the main element in the trade of Rangoon, teak is the principal article at Moulmein. The finest teak forests are to be found in Northern Burmah. The tree does not flourish south of the 16th degree of latitude.
Moulmein River Boat