1886.J THE REDWOODS OF A^OBTHERN CALIFORNIA. G91 



way to a train of mules loaded with wool from the mountains 

 beyond the redwoods. 



But what is that strange sound ? — The traveller stops to listen. — 

 Yes — it is the whistle of a locomotive which conies faintly to 

 the ear, — signs of his journey's end. That is well, for the forest 

 near sunset grows suddenly dark. Again he hears a sound as of a 

 horn — he meets the woodsmen straggling into camp — he learns that 

 it is yet some miles to the stopping house, and he is glad to accept 

 the invitation of the " Boss " to stop over night. The horse is 

 picketed to a stump, a refreshing wash is had at the washing 

 trough, " supper " is called, and the men Ly batches sit down to a 

 well-provided table in the kitchen, an arrangement which serves 

 well enough, as some are longer of arriving from their work than 

 others. Afterwards pipes are smoked around a huge fire till nine 

 o'clock, by which time most have crawled off to their bunks in the 

 cabins near. 



Perhaps in the morning a ride is had on the flat cars into the 

 woods for logs. Here is a team of twelve oxen " snaking " a huge 

 section of a trunk — a log sixteen or perhaps twenty feet in length 

 — along. The lower edge of the cut has been smoothed off to let 

 the Tog slip easily along, sled-like. It is brought side on to one of 

 the cars which has some timbers put sloping against its side, a turn 

 or two of a chain is then taken round the log, the under end of 

 this chain is fixed to the car or to a stump beyond it, and the other 

 being led over the car and attached to a team of oxen, the log is by 

 them easily trundled up the timbers into its place in the waggon ; 

 but generally it requires a couple of waggons to carry each log. 

 The train loaded, is run direct to mill, or it may be to the nearest 

 tidewater creek, into which the logs are " dumped," and floated 

 down the bay to the mills at Eureka. 



Eailroads are being pushed further and further into the forest, 

 and though they furnish evidence of commercial prosperity, no 

 one can contemplate the wholesale destruction they bring without 

 feelings of sadness. Nothing can be conceived more desolate-looking 

 and ragged and uncouth than the land over which the woodsmen 

 have passed, and nothing more apt to excite condemnation than the 

 seeming wanton waste of timber they leave behind them. Red- 

 wood laiid, however, is rich, and soon a growth of fir, brushwood, 

 and ferns, covers the ground ; occasionally, too, the stumps will bud 

 afresh, if not blackened by fire, and become like shapely bushes. 



Of this redwood nearly every house in California is built and 

 shingled ; and whether cottage, or the palace of some railway or 

 Bonanza king, these are — white painted, and with cool verandahs, 

 clustered with creepers — generally light and elegant. The fields 



