THE HATHIS PILING TEAK

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 23

THE HATHIS PILING TEAK

IN the actual felling of the trees the Burmese natives use a f peculiar cutting tool, shaped something after the style of a \ : Ghurka's knife, though not possessing the keen edge of the | - latter. They chop witth these primitive tools at an alarm- \ = ni^ly high speed, and although each blow seems to count for little, = \ the rapidity with which they work fells a tree of. equal growth, j I and much tougher wood in about the same time one of our woods- =. f men would accomplish the task, writes Lloyd Fraser, of Rangoon, | | in "The Empire Review." # = ! In Burma, from the time the log enters the water up on one | | of the tributaries: of the Irrawaddy River, it usually takes two ; | years for it to reach the mill at tidewater. The first rains, which I f bring down the floods, pick up the logs in a jam and carry ;them i jj down to the main river, which usually disposes of the available \ I water of the season. The following season they may go down the | I main stream properly boomed, but as the streairHs very rapid, = | the logs require little or no towing. , ; I I think one of the prettiest sights in the world is to see the | I elephants at work in the Rangoon teak yards, at the mouth of ; I the Irrawaddy River, where the logs arrive. Here the logs arrive \ I in an undisturbed inlet, they are released from their boom chains, \ | and the elephants take the logs out of the water and stack them = f in piles in the mill-yards until required for sawing. | | The elephants work in two gangs, as a rule, with the most f I warrior-like as foreman. Immediately on the blow of the whistle f f the foreman elephant starts his gang of perhaps fifty animals to f I work. One gang walks to the inlet, the others keeping them | ! goin<* as the logs are retrieved from the water and dumped at a I [ convenient spot. Once the logs are not being piled on straight i I the foreman elephant soon spots the culprit and makes him do all 1 I the work over again. It is amazing, too, to see how the elephants § = can grade the logs, both as regards length and girth, especially § \ is the bulk of the work proceeds without any human interference. \ Jj...... \ • ' ■ % &