The chief use of log-wood in this country is for dyeing green, purple, blue, and black colours, according to the different ingredients with which it is employed. It gives a purplish tinge to watery and spirituous infusions; but all the colours which can be prepared from it are fugitive, and cannot, by any art, be rendered so durable as those prepared from other materials.
Independently of its use as a dyeing drug, log-wood possesses considerable utility as an astringent medicine, chiefly under the form of a decoction, or of an extract boiled down to a proper consistence.
The price of logwood at Honduras is so low as not usually to exceed 12l. or 14l. Jamaica currency per ton.
143. MAHOGANY is the wood of a well-known tree (Swietenia mahagoni, Fig. 44) of large dimensions, with winged leaves, and small white flowers, which grows in Jamaica and Honduras.
The branches of this tree are numerous and spreading. Its leaves are alternate and winged, with four or five pair of leaflets, which are somewhat spear-shaped. The flowers are numerous, small, white, and in spikes or clusters, which arise at the junction of the leaves with the branches.
The cutting of mahogany constitutes a principal occupation of the British settlers in the vicinity of Honduras. The gangs of negroes employed in this work consist of from ten to fifty each, one of whom is styled the "huntsman." He is generally selected from the most intelligent of his companions, and his chief employment is to search for these trees in the woods, the principal of which lie adjacent to the river Balize. About the beginning of August, the huntsman is despatched into the woods, and he cuts his way through the thickest parts, to the highest spots he can find. Here he climbs the loftiest tree, and thence attentively surveys the surrounding forest. At this season the leaves of the mahogany trees are of a yellow reddish hue, and an eye accustomed to them can discover, at a great distance, the places where they are most abundant. He now descends, and to such places directs his steps; and, having well marked the way, returns to his companions, to point out the places to them.
Here they assemble, and erect, against each tree to be felled, a stage so high as to allow of the tree being cut down at the height of about twelve feet from the ground. The last day of felling the trees is appropriated to festivity; and these people have then a short interval of leisure for comforts in which they seldom can indulge at any other time.
After the branches are lopped, and the useless parts of the wood are cut off, the operation commences of conveying the trees, by cattle and trucks, to the water's side, a task of infinite and laborious difficulty. A sufficient number of pieces to form a raft being here collected, they are shoved from the bank into the water, and suffered to float singly upon the current to large cables which are placed across the river at some distance below. As numerous gangs of mahogany cutters are usually employed near the banks of the same river, their trees also float to the same spot. Here therefore the whole are collected, amounting sometimes to more than a thousand immense logs; and, each party claiming his own, the trees are formed into separate rafts for their final destinations.
In some instances the profit of cutting mahogany at this settlement has been very great. A single tree has occasionally been known to contain 12,000 superficial feet, and to have produced upwards of 1000l. sterling.
The body of the tree is of course the most valuable; but, for ornamental purposes, the limbs or large branches, are generally preferred, their grain being much closer, and their veins being more rich and variegated than those of the other parts.