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Elephants as Timber Carriers.

      One of the great industries of Burma is the timber trade. The teakwood, which is the chief timber cut and shipped, is very heavy and requires prodigious force too handle it; and, as the Burmese are not far enough advanced to use machinery for the purpose, they use elephants, and bravely do the noble beasts perform their task. In the timber yards, both at Rangoon and Maulmain, all the heavy work of drawing and piling the logs is done by them. I have never seen animals showing such intelligence  and trained to such docility and obedience.

     In the yard that we visited there were seven elephants, five of which were at that moment at work. Their wonderful strength came into play in moving huge pieces of timber. I did not measure the logs, but should think that many were at least twenty feet long and a foot square. Yet a male elephant would swoop down, put his tusks under a log and throw his trunk over it, and walk off with it as lightly as a gentlemen would balance bamboo cane on the tip of hi finger. Placing it on the pile, he would measure it with his eye, and if it projected too far at either end, would walk up to it and, with a gentle push or pull, make the pile even.

     If a still heavier log needed to be moved on the ground to some other part of the yard, the mahout [or driver] would tell him what to do, and the great creature seemed to have a perfect understanding of his master’s will. He would put out his enormous foot and push it along, or he would bend his head and, crouching half way to the ground and doubling up his trunk, throw his whole weight against it, and thus, like a ram, would “butt” the log into place; or, if needed to be taken to a greater distance, he would put a chain around it and drag it off behind him.

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