The Spotted Deer

A fascinating book about the authors role in the forests of Burma as the chief Forestry Assistant of a timber extraction camp, using elephant teams as labour. He is offered the opportunity to travel to the little explored Andaman Islands, and survey the area to determine its suitability for logging.
Joined by a forestry engineer, a Swedish timber specialist and the son of official in Port Blair along with his personal servants and 50 Burmese convicts (Port Blair was a penal colony), the are dropped in the northern Andaman Islands with the promise of a visit from a pair of Southampton sea planes to carry out some aerial photography, and collection in 3 months time.
The book details the methods, the dangers they overcame, and their contact with the Andamanese natives.
The book covers Williams' work in setting up a new Forest Assistant to cover his role during his absence on the survey, the time in the Andaman Islands, and the outcomes on his return to Burma.
Despite his disappointment in the venture being ultimately proved uneconomic, we can all be thankful that the Andaman Islands were spared the kind of clear felling treatment proposed by the engineers ‘mechanical extraction' solution, but also the devastation the elephant teams would have had at that time, much of the Andaman's was later logged.