Creator:
Bean, C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow), 1879-1968
altogether when the three times were added.
The next team was Australian. From the first rapid swing one's anxiety
was whether they could possibly stand the pace. They tackled the job so
much more fiercely than the Canadians. I watched a young Tasmanian, his
whole soul in it, brow wrinkled, and sweat pouring from his face. You
would have thought that he was cutting almost wildly, till you noticed
how every cut went home exactly on top of the cut before. These
Australians--they were Western Australians mostly--made a wide scarf,
the top cut coming down at an angle, and the lower cut coming up at a
similar angle to meet it, making a wide open angle between the two. The
odds would, I think, have been taken by most of those who went there as
being in favour of the Canadians; and it was a great surprise when the
three Australian trees were all down in thirty-one minutes and eight
seconds.
The New Zealanders cut third. Their team consisted of Maoris. They did
not seem to be cutting with the fire of the Australians. There was not
the visible energy; their actions struck one as easier, and one doubted
if their great, lithe, brown muscles were carrying them so fast.
Yet the time told the truth. Their three trees were down in twenty-two
minutes and forty seconds, and no one else approached them. One Canadian
team improved the Canadian time to forty-five minutes twenty-two
seconds. The Maoris seemed mostly to cut with a narrower scarf even than
Book 06 Joshua
001:001 Now it happened after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh,
that Yahweh spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying,
001:002 Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan,
you, and all this people, to the land which I give to them,
even to the children of Israel.
001:003 I have given you every place that the sole of your foot will
tread on, as I told Moses.
001:004 From the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even to the great river,
the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites,
and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun,
shall be your border.
001:005 No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.
As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail
you nor forsake you.
001:006 Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this
people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers
to give them.
001:007 Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according
to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you.
Don't turn from it to the right hand or to the left,
the Canadians, both upper and lower cuts sloping downward at a narrow
angle. In fairness it must be said that the Maoris had practised about
six weeks, the Canadians and Australians about one week.
An Australian won the log-chopping competition; and the Canadians won
with the crosscut saw. A New Zealander won the competition for style.
Later the men were mostly sitting watching the Frenchmen, workers in the
forest, giving an exhibition cut. Two of a Canadian team were sitting on
a log next to me, yarning in the slow, quizzical drawl of the Canadian
countryman, when some of their mates sat down beside them. The man next
me turned to them, and the next instant they were all talking French
among themselves, talking it as their native tongue. Their officer, a
handsome youngster, spoke it too. It was not till that moment that I
realised that most of these Canadian woodsmen here were French.
Meanwhile the exhibition chop went on. The French woodsmen were digging
at the roots of their trees with long, ancient axes, more like a cold
chisel than a modern axe. "I think I could do as well with a knife and
fork," said one great kindly Australian as he watched with a smile.
But, to my mind, that exhibition was the most impressive of all. For
every one of those who took part in it was either an old man or a slip
of a slender boy.