The redwood forests begin a mile or two back from the sea.

The climate of this part of the coast is remarkably equal, cool but not cold, all the year round; they have fires in the evening in July, and don't shut their doors, except in a storm, in December.

They wear the same clothing all the year round, and seldom have frost.

But when you get out of the reach of the sea, only a mile back, you find hot weather in July; and in winter they have snow, quite deep sometimes, in the redwoods.
Where the little saw-mill rivers enter the sea, there is usually a sort of roadstead--a curve of the shore, not enough to make a harbor, but sufficient to give anchorage and a lee from the prevailing north-west wind, which makes it possible, by different devices, to load vessels.
There are rivers in Humboldt County where nature has not provided even this slight convenience, and there--it being impossible to ship the lumber--no saw-mills have been established.
Vessels are frequently lost, in spite of all precautions; for, when the wind changes to south-west, the whole Pacific Ocean rolls into these roadsteads; and, when a gale is seen approaching, the crews anchor their ships as securely as they can, and then go ashore.

It has happened in Mendocino harbor, that a schooner has been capsized at her anchorage by a monstrous sea; and Captain Lansing told me that in the last twenty years he had seen over a hundred persons drowned in that port alone, in spite of all precautions.
The waves have cut up the coast in the most fantastic manner.