Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands by Charles Nordhoff
page 210 of 346 (60%)
page 210 of 346 (60%)
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the pretty little hood over his door-way. So helpless is man! And yet
there are people who would make of woman only a kind of female man! As you travel along the coast, the stage-road gives you frequent and satisfactory views of its curiously distorted and ocean-eaten caves and rocks. It has a dangerous and terrible aspect, no doubt, to mariners, but it is most wonderful, viewed from the shore. At every projection you see that the waves have pierced and mined the rock; if the sea is high, you will hear it roar in the caverns it has made, and whistle and shriek wherever it has an outlet above through which the waves may force the air. The real curiosity of this region is a logging camp. The redwood country is astonishingly broken; the mountain sides are often almost precipitous; and on these steep sides the redwood grows tall and straight and big beyond the belief of an Eastern man. The trees do not occupy the whole ground, but share it with laurels, dogwood, a worthless kind of oak, occasionally pine, and smaller wood. It is a kind of jungle; and the loggers, when they have felled a number of trees, set fire to the brush in order to clear the ground before they attempt to draw the logs to the water. [Illustration: VICTORIA HARBOR, VANCOUVER'S ISLAND.] A logging camp is an assemblage of rude redwood shanties, gathered about one larger shanty, which is the cook-house and dining-hall, and where usually two or three Chinamen are at work over the stove, and setting the table. The loggers live well; they have excellent bread, meat, beans, butter, dried apples, cakes, pies, and pickles; in short, I have dined in worse places. |
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