Milton, who was at once the most sublime and the most practical of
writers, has said,
------ “To know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom.”
The poet more especially had in view that knowledge to which all other
knowledge is secondary--we mean the knowledge of ourselves. But we may
not improperly adopt his forcible expressions as a motto to a series of
articles which we shall occasionally publish, which will have for their
object to collect some of the most striking facts belonging to the
commonest things by which we are surrounded in our every-day life,
particularly those comforts and conveniences which the humblest man
possesses in a state of advanced civilization. The history of a knife,
or a button, or a coat, or a watch, or an earthen pan, or a candle, or a
lump of coal, or a mahogany table, or a Penny Magazine, suggests to our
minds more precise and satisfactory notions of the progress of society,
and therefore of the real history of the people of these kingdoms, than
all the details of wars and treaties and state intrigues, of which
history is in general made up. In the execution of such a purpose it is
not important to pursue any systematic plan. The most material
consideration will be to select those things of ordinary use which are
so common, that it would be difficult to find a single reader who is not
more or less indebted to them for some of his enjoyments.
We will begin with a Mahogany Table. If we had been speaking about a
mahogany table, or any other article of mahogany, thirty or forty years
ago, we should have expected only to have interested the rich in the
description of this important material of English furniture. Now, what
tradesman, or mechanic, or even cottager, does not possess some article
of mahogany--if it be only a tea-caddy? The universal employment of
mahogany for articles of furniture, whose price does not operate as a
prohibition against their use in general society, has been produced by
the large application of capital to the commercial speculation of
bringing mahogany logs to this country from the West Indies,--and,
further, by the invention of machinery for cutting those logs into thin
layers, called veneers, by which operation the finest wood is brought
within a reasonable cost. Now observe what commercial enterprise and
mechanical ingenuity will accomplish in a comparatively small period.
Some piece of mahogany furniture is now, probably, found in every house
in England;--a hundred and eight years ago the wood was unknown here. A
physician of the name of Gibbons, who resided in London, received in
1724 a present of some mahogany planks from his brother, a West-India
captain. Dr. Gibbons was then building a house in King-street,
Covent-garden, and he desired his carpenter to work up the wood. The
carpenter had no tool hard enough to touch it; so the planks were laid
aside. The doctor’s wife, after the house was finished, wanted a
candle-box, and the mahogany was again thought of. A cabinet-maker of
the name of Wollaston was applied to; and he also complained that his
tools were too soft. But he persevered, and the candle-box was at length
completed--after a rude fashion no doubt. The candle-box was so much
admired, that the physician resolved to have a mahogany bureau; and when
the bureau was finished, all the people of fashion came to see it. The
cabinet-maker procured more planks, and made a fortune by the numerous
customers he obtained. From that time the use of mahogany furniture went
forward amongst the luxurious;--and the drawers and bureaus of
walnut-tree and pear-tree were gradually superseded in the houses of the
rich. To show the present extensive use of mahogany in this country it
may be sufficient to mention that in 1829 the importation of this wood
amounted to 19,335 tons.
The common mahogany (called by botanists _Swietenia mahagoni_) is one of
the most majestic trees of the whole world. There are trees of greater
height than the mahogany;--but in Cuba and Honduras this tree, during a
growth of two centuries, expands to such a gigantic trunk, throws out
such massive arms, and spreads the shade of its shining green leaves
over such a vast surface, that even the proudest oaks of our forests
appear insignificant in comparison with it. A single log, such as is
brought to this country from Honduras, not unfrequently weighs six or
seven tons.
[Illustration: Mahogany Tree.]
When we consider the enormous size of a trunk of mahogany, and further
learn that the most valuable timber grows in the most inaccessible
situations, it must be evident that a great portion of the price of this
timber must be made up of the cost of the labour required for
transporting it from its native forests to the place of its embarkation
for England. The mode in which this difficult work is accomplished is
highly interesting; and we have, fortunately, the means of giving an
account of the process (which, we believe, has never before been
described in any English publication,) from some statements printed in a
Honduras Almanac, which has been kindly put into our hands for this
purpose.
The season for cutting the mahogany usually commences about the month of
August. The gangs of labourers employed in this work consist of from
twenty to fifty each, but few exceed the latter number. They are
composed of slaves and free persons, without any comparative distinction
of rank, and it very frequently occurs that the conductor of such work,
here styled the Captain, is a slave. Each gang has also one person
belonging to it termed the Huntsman. He is generally selected from the
most intelligent of his fellows, and his chief occupation is to search
the woods, or, as it is called, _the bush_, to find labour for the
whole. Accordingly, about the beginning of August, the huntsman is
despatched on his important mission. He cuts his way through the
thickest of the woods to some elevated situation, and climbs the tallest
tree he finds, from which he minutely surveys the surrounding country.
At this season the leaves of the mahogany tree are invariably of a
yellow reddish hue, and an eye accustomed to this kind of exercise, can,
at a great distance, discern the places where the wood is most abundant.
He now descends, and to such places his steps are directed; and, without
compass, or other guide than what observation has imprinted on his
recollection, he never fails to reach the exact point at which he aims.
On some occasions no ordinary stratagem is necessary to be resorted to,
by the huntsman, to prevent others from availing themselves of the
advantage of his discoveries; for, if his steps be traced by those who
may be engaged in the same pursuit, which is a very common thing, all
his ingenuity must be exerted to beguile them from the true scent. In
this, however, he is not always successful, being followed by those who
are entirely aware of all the arts he may use, and whose eyes are so
quick that the lightest turn of a leaf, or the faintest impression of
the foot, is unerringly perceived. The treasure being, however, reached
by one party or another, the next operation is the felling of a
sufficient number of trees to employ the gang during the season. The
mahogany tree is commonly cut about ten or twelve feet from the ground,
a stage being erected for the axe-man employed in levelling it. The
trunk of the tree, from the dimensions of the wood it furnishes, is
deemed the most valuable; but, for ornamental purposes, the limbs, or
branches, are generally preferred.
A sufficient number of trees being felled to occupy the gang during the
season, they commence cutting the roads upon which they are to be
transported. This may fairly be estimated at two-thirds of the labour
and expense of mahogany cutting. Each mahogany work forms in itself a
small village on the bank of a river,--the choice of situation being
always regulated by the proximity of such river to the mahogany intended
as the object of future operations.
After completing the establishment of a sufficient number of huts for
the accommodation of the workmen, a main road is opened from the
settlement, in a direction as near as possible to the centre of the body
of trees so felled, into which branch-roads are afterwards introduced,
the ground through which the roads are to run being yet a mass of dense
forest, both of high trees and underwood. The labourers commence by
clearing away the underwood with cutlasses. This labour is usually
performed by task-work, of one hundred yards, each man, per day. The
underwood being removed, the larger trees are then cut down by the axe,
as even with the ground as possible, the task being also at this work
one hundred yards per day to each labourer. The hard woods growing here,
on failure of the axe, are removed by the application of fire. The
trunks of these trees, although many of them are valuable, such as
bullet-tree, ironwood, redwood, and sapodilla, are thrown away as
useless, unless they happen to be adjacent to some creek or small river,
which may intersect the road. In that case they are applied to the
construction of bridges, which are frequently of considerable size, and
require great labour to make them of sufficient strength to bear such
immense loads as are brought over them.
If the mahogany trees are much dispersed or scattered, the labour and
extent of road-cutting is, of course, greatly increased. It not
unfrequently occurs that miles of road and many bridges are made to a
single tree, that may ultimately yield but one log. When roads are
cleared of brush-wood, they still require the labour of hoes, pick-axes,
and sledge hammers to level down the hillocks, to break the rocks, and
to cut such of the remaining stumps as might impede the wheels that are
hereafter to pass over them.
The roads being now in a state of readiness, which may generally be
effected by the month of December, the cross cutting, as it is
technically called, commences. This is merely dividing crosswise, by
means of saws, each mahogany tree into logs, according to their length;
and it often occurs, that while some are but long enough for one log,
others, on the contrary, will admit of four or five being cut from the
same trunk or stem. The chief guide for dividing the trees into logs is
the necessity for equalizing the loads the cattle have to draw.
Consequently, as the tree increases in thickness, the logs are reduced
in length. This, however, does not altogether obviate the irregularity
of the loads, and a supply of oxen are constantly kept in readiness to
add to the usual number, according to the weight of the log. This
becomes unavoidable, from the very great difference of size of the
mahogany trees, the logs taken from one tree being about 300 cubic feet,
while those from the next may be as many thousand. The largest log ever
cut in Honduras was of the following dimensions:--Length, 17 feet;
breadth, 57 inches; depth, 64 inches; measuring 5,168 superficial feet,
or 15 tons weight.
The sawing being now completed, the logs are reduced, by means of the
axe, from the round or natural form, into the square. The month of March
is now reached, when all the preparation before described is, or ought
to be, completed; when the dry season, or time of drawing down the logs
from the place of their growth, commences. This process can only be
carried on in the months of April and May; the ground, during all the
rest of the year, being too soft to admit of a heavily laden truck to
pass over it without sinking. It is now necessary that not a moment
should be lost in drawing out the wood to the river.
A gang of forty men is generally capable of working six trucks. Each
truck requires seven pair of oxen and two drivers; sixteen to cut food
for the cattle, and twelve to load or put the logs on the carriages.
From the intense heat of the sun, the cattle, especially, would be
unable to work during its influence; and, consequently, the loading and
carriage of the timber is performed in the night. The logs are placed
upon the trucks by means of a temporary platform laid from the edge of
the truck to a sufficient distance upon the ground, so as to make an
inclined plane, upon which the log is gradually pushed up by bodily
labour, without any further mechanical aid.
The operations of loading and carrying are thus principally performed
during the hours of darkness. The torches employed are pieces of wood
split from the trunk of the pitch-pine. The river-side is generally
reached by the wearied drivers and cattle before the sun is at its
highest power; and the logs, marked with the owner’s initials, are
thrown into the river.
About the end of May the periodical rains again commence; the torrents
of water discharged from the clouds are so great as to render the roads
impassable in the course of a few hours, when all trucking ceases. About
the middle of June the rivers are swollen to an immense height. The logs
then float down a distance of two hundred miles, being followed by the
gang in pitpans (a kind of flat-bottomed canoe), to disengage them from
the branches of the overhanging trees, until they are stopped by a boom
placed in some situation convenient to the mouth of the river. Each gang
then separates its own cutting, by the marks on the ends of the logs,
and forms them into large rafts; in which state they are brought down to
the wharves of the proprietors, where they are taken out of the water,
and undergo a second process of the axe, to make the surface smooth. The
ends, which frequently get split and rent by being dashed against rocks
in the river by the force of the current, are also sawed off. They are
now ready for shipping.
The ships clearing out from Belize, the principal port of Honduras, with
their valuable freight of mahogany, either come direct to England, or
take their cargo to some free warehousing port of the British
possessions in the West Indies or America.
We must describe the beautiful process of cutting mahogany logs into
veneers, before we have reached the point when the skill of the
cabinet-maker is employed to produce a mahogany table. This shall be
done in an early number.
[Illustration: Trucking Mahogany.]
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