Life in a Jungle Forest

Mr. A.W. Smith was bored with life in the British Army in 1930 and decided to try something wildly different.  He ended up in the largely uninhabited teak forest in Burma.  His adventure is recounted for us in "Working Teak in the Burma Forests: The Sagacious Elephant is Man's Ablest Ally in the Logging Industry of the Far East," in the August, 1930, issue of National Geographic Magazine.


Smith brought with him from London six months of food due to the remote area.  During the journey to his destination, he tried to learn to speak the Burmese language.  "Of the 8 or 9 languages, ancient and modern, Asiatic and European, I have learned or tried to learn, Burmese is the most difficult" (p. 240).

The country of Burma is now called the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.  In southeast Asia, it is bordered by China on the north and east, Thailand and Laos on the east, and Bangladesh and India on the west. (Gotta love my globe and also Google!)  It has a long coastline (1,200 miles) on the Bay of Bengal.  Burma has many hills with a thick tropical forest.

When finally in the teak forest, Smith was trained for two months by an experienced native elephant master.  Smith would be in charge of 80 elephants and 300 men in a district of 3,000 square miles.

Anxious to get started, he was cautioned by his manager in camp, "You will see all the elephants you want to in the next month or two. . .and unless you are a born elephant master you may begin to get tired of looking over backs and feet and seeing that saddlery fits" (p. 241).

Teak trees are relatively rare in the hardwood forests, so they have to be hunted.  Why go to such great lengths to harvest teak trees in 1930?  "Many hundred millions of feet of teak are produced in the Rangoon mills annually, most of it to be used locally in India and Burma for housebuilding  abroad, principally as shipbuilding material.  Of all the timbers of the world, teak is the shipbuilders greatest prize" (p. 246).

The teak trees were located, felled, measured, and floated down rivers by the ancient, tried-and-true methods, using elephants.  I was impressed that both the elephants, the natives, and the teak trees were respected, never forced, and that all habits and seasons were faithfully observed by the British, foreign owners.

The elephants were worked very hard but taken care of very well.  There was a certain annual percentage of loss of elephants in the camps.  Mr. Smith was extremely proud that in his first year, not a single elephant died.

Mr. Smith concludes, "I must be a born elephant master, for I never tired of it, though I have never attained to any great heights of skill or knowledge in elephant management" (p. 241).

FYI: In this year, 2013, Burma produces one-third of the world's teak wood.