[Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands by Charles Nordhoff]@TWC D-Link bookNorthern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands CHAPTER VIII 7/15
Mendocino, a bark lay there loading for the Navigator Islands. A large part of the lumbering population consists of bachelors, and for their accommodation you see numerous shanties erected near the saw-mills and lumber piles.
At Mendocino City there is quite a colony of such shanties, two long rows, upon a point or cape from which the lumber is loaded. I had the curiosity to enter one of these little snuggeries, which was unoccupied.
It was about ten by twelve feet in area, had a large fire-place (for fuel is shamefully abundant here), a bunk for sleeping, with a lamp arranged for reading in bed, a small table, hooks for clothes, a good board floor, a small window, and a neat little hood over the door-way, which gave this little hut quite a picturesque effect.
There was, besides, a rough bench and a small table. It seemed to me that in such a climate as that of Mendocino, where they wear the same clothes all the year round, have evening fires in July, and may keep their doors open in January, such a little kennel as this meets all the real wants of the male of the human race. This, I suspect, is about as far as man, unaided by woman, would have carried civilization anywhere.
Whatever any of us have over and above such a snuggery as this we owe to womankind; whatever of comfort or elegance we possess, woman has given us, or made us give her.
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