Bark hut

“ I then made a little conical bark hut about a foot high, and, carefully leaning over it and sheltering it as much as possible from the driving rain, I wiped and stored a lot of dead twigs, lighted the candle, and set it in the hut, carefully added pinches of punk and shavings, and at length got a little blaze, by the light of which I gradually added larger shavings, then twigs all set on end astride the inner flame, making the little hut higher and wider. ”

“ Here, then, a rude hut, but withal picturesque in its appearance, is erected—it is formed of logs, and covered with broad sheets of birch bark. For the universal use of this bark I think the Indians must have given the example. Many beautiful articles are made by them of it, and to the back settlers it is invaluable. As an inside roofing, it effectually resists the rain—baskets for gathering the innumerable tribe of summer berries, and boxes for packing butter are made of it—calabashes for drinking are formed of it in an instant by the bright forest stream. ”

“ On our return, we seated ourselves at the door of the hut. It is a poor, squat little house, heavily supported upon thick walls; the knotty joists of the ceiling retain their bark. It is indeed necessary that it should be able to stand out alone against the snows of winter. You find everywhere the imprint of the terrible months it has gone through. ”

“ There were three huts on the siding of a spur of the ridge that came down to the corner of Log Paddock. One, a one-roomed bark hut, with the chimney and door in an end, stood down close to the road, within stone-throw of the claim. The other two were up the hill a bit, to right and left, the one on the left a two-roomed bark hut, the other had four rooms, a skillion, and a shed, and whitewashed slab walls, and was called a house—"Mrs. Foster's House," or "Mrs. Foster's Place," or, for short, "the Fosters'." Mrs. ”

“ Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each hut 103 is the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief. ”

“ The radiating spokes are united by concentric hoops made of twisted grass placed at regular intervals, and tied at the crossings with bark soaked in water, which of course tightens as it dries.
The roof is always made to project at least three feet beyond the walls, and its edges are supported by posts. The space under the eaves makes quite a small verandah, and is banked up with clay to the height of a foot so as to form a step or low platform running round the house. The walls are not more than four feet high, perhaps less; the centre of the hut may be twelve feet. ”

“ At his request, the partners remained in the buggy, where they spent an interval of a few minutes in covetous admiration of the neat hut with its bark roof, the iron windlass, the stack of timber slabs for lining the shaft, and the suggestively solid opening of the shaft itself. ”

“ The three bark huts on the shore of the lake had been recently erected and used by a hunting and fishing party. They proved perfectly water tight, and a bright fire of green logs soon dried all dampness out of our garments. Our supper that night was quite elaborate, both pork and hasty pudding entering into its composition. The rain continued to descend, and pattered softly as we disposed ourselves to rest. ”

“ Should the locality abound in the eucalypytus, or stringy-bark tree, the natives make a hut altogether different in appearance. With wonderful dexterity, they strip off the bark of the tree in large flakes, six or seven feet in length. A few large branches of trees are then laid on the ground, so that they form a rough sort of framework, and upon these branches the flakes of bark are laid. An hour’s labor will make one of these huts, so that the natives have really no inducement to take any care of them. ”

“ We rowed leisurely along the eastern shore, and in a deep bay found excellent fishing, at the mouth of a cold mountain brook. On the banks of this bay we found the winter hut of a martin and sable trapper. It had an outer and inner apartment, the latter almost subterranean. The hut was composed of small logs, which a single man could lay up, the crevices between which were closely packed with moss, and the roof covered with two or three layers of bark. ”

“ Their dwelling-places are wretched huts of bark, exposed on all sides to wind, and rain. All their masonry-work consists in placing a few grey rock-stones on the ground, round their fire-place, to prevent the firebrands from spreading too far in their hut, or rather to mark out the space intended for the fire-place in it. ”

“ Wasn' 'nough ter but damp the top stuff; 'n if the sun comes out bright and 'ot bye and bye, it'll make the bark split on the big logs, 'n yer'll git all the better burn f'r it."
How anxiously I waited! At eight o'clock out sprang the sun in full strength. Nine—ten—then eleven o'clock came, and the day was one of the hottest I have ever felt up here. Half-past eleven!
"Now, me little frogs' ears," said Barker. "A few buckets of water ready at the hut; then away she goes a million!" ”

“ In summer all they require is to be shaded from the sun, and for this a pile of bushes or a tree will suffice. The winter huts are a little more pretentious. These are sometimes erected on the level ground, but more frequently over an excavation three or four feet deep, and varying from ten to thirty feet in diameter. Round the brink of this hole willow poles are sunk upright in the ground and the tops drawn together, forming a conical structure, or the upper ends are bent over 372 and driven into the earth on the opposite side of the pit, thus giving the hut a semi-globular shape. ”

“ The huts are long and low, with an arched roof, and vary in length from ten to twenty feet, with an average height of five feet, and a width of six. They consist of a neat framework of strips of bamboo, thatched with long coarse grass. Each hut is usually situated in a small well-fenced enclosure, and opposite to it on the beach is the cooking place, consisting of a small shed, under which the fire is made. ”

“ Perched on the perilous brink of that curving wall of rocks, with its low, irregular, patched and weather-beaten roof, and its rough-boarded and storm-beaten walls half hidden in a tangle of vines and bushes, the little hut looks, from a distance, as though it might once have been the strange habitation of some gigantic winged creature of prehistoric ages. ”

“ Contrary to our expectation we found the inside of the huts perfectly clean, and we voted unanimously that the Bari women are good house-keepers, for they do all the work about the dwellings. The walls are of wattles, or reeds, and small withes woven together. The outside of the hut is thatched with grass, and the inside is plastered with cement made from the clay of the ant-hills mixed with ashes, and worked into a paste with water. Outside of the hut there is a little court-yard, with a fence around it, and paved with the same kind of cement that we saw on the walls. ”

“ Such huts as these, however, are but seldom seen, the ordinary winter dwellings being made of bushes, as seen in an illustration on the next page. Near the entrance, but not within it, the fire is kindled, and at night the natives crowd into the hut, filling it so completely that a view of the interior displays nothing but a confused mass of human limbs. The reader will perceive that the luxury of a door has not been contemplated by the native architects—an omission which is perhaps rather fortunate, considering the crowded state of the interior. ”

“ One huge slab of granite, some twelve feet long and six feet wide, forms half the roof of the larger hut; the remainder has fallen in.
On the other side of Brown Willy, the west side, at no great distance from the source of the river Fowey, is another beehive hut, not absolutely perfect, but nearly so; one course and the smoke-hole coverer have fallen in on one side. The doors to these hovels are so low that he who enters one must crawl on hands and knees. ”

“ Towns there are none, except in certain parts; seldom do more than four or five houses stand in a group; the locality being changed at intervals for sanitary or superstitious purposes. A few upright posts planted in parallel lines, or in a circle, and occasionally interwoven with cane or leaves, support what may be called the hut 718 proper, which is a sharply sloping, well-thatched palm-leaf roof with projecting eaves, reaching to within three or four feet of the ground. ”

“ By now the darkness has ceased to keep spread over us, as it were, the stretched web of a heavy curtain, but has grown thinner and more transparent with the tension, save that, in places (for instance, in the window of the hut) , it still lies in thick folds or clots as it peers at us with its sightless eyes.
Over the hummock-like roofs of the huts rise the church's steeple and the poplar trees; while hither and thither on the wall of the hut, the cracks and holes in the crumbling plaster have caused the wall to resemble the map of an unknown country. ”

“ I could not help wondering how any human being could endure such solitude for years, as the occupant of a hut like this is necessarily condemned to. In itself it was as snug and comfortable as possible, with a little paddock for the shepherd's horse, an acre or so of garden, now overgrown with self-sown potatoes, peas, strawberry, raspberry, and gooseberry plants, the little thatched fowl-house near, and the dog-kennels ”

“ Early as was the hour, not later than half-past eight, the place lay silent and still under the balmy summer haze. All the shearers were fast asleep in the men's hut, whilst every available nook and corner was filled with the spare hands; the musterers, branders, yard-keepers, and many others, whose duties were less-defined. Far down the flat we could dimly discern a white patch,—the fleecy outlines of the large mob destined to fill the skillions at day-break to-morrow morning ”

“ The huts here are like those already described, only they are dry because of the porous character of the ground. Three or four families live in one each having a private polog of deer-skins, of which there are several thicknesses on the floor. We were shown into one—the snuggest storm nest imaginable, and perfectly clean. The common hut is far otherwise; dogs mingle with the food, hair is everywhere, and strangely persistent smells that defy even the Arctic frosts. The children seemed in fair ratio with the adults. ”

“ With a whoop they set out across the slope for the ruined hut, which stood back in a small clearing cut out of the forest. Blackened stumps stood about it but it was long since the ground had been cultivated. A few mouldering corn stalks, however, remained to show that the place had once been inhabited.
As for the hut itself, it was a primitive shelter of rough logs, the roof of which had been formed [260] out of "slabs" split from the logs direct. A stone chimney was crumbling away at one end, but it was many a year since any cheerful wreaths of smoke had wound upward from it. ”

“ The horse is unharnessed, and “led” across, and with much exertion, and putting of shoulders to the wheel, literally, we succeed in lifting the waggon over it. Nothing further stops us, till we come suddenly on an open space, which, pretty as it is, has a borrowed beauty from its contrast to the dark, almost impenetrable, shade we have been passing through lately. Just to the right of us is a low, substantial-looking, hut—built entirely of roughly sawn planks, with plastered clay to fill up the interstices between them. ”

“ Their huts merely serve the purpose of temporary shelter from the weather, They are constructed of branches of trees placed slanting and open on one side, which is always to leeward; if a fallen tree is near, it usually serves to support the hut, and sometimes when coarse grass is convenient, it is interwoven with the branches. Their fires are made at the very entrance of the huts, and if the wind shifts must be immediately removed. ”

“ A little way down the side of the hill that descends in gorse banks and broken rock and clean precipice to one of the largest and grandest of the caves, is a hut made of fragments of wrecked ships thrown up on this shore. The sides are formed of curved ribs of vessels, and the entrance ornamented with carved work from a figure-head. This hut was made by Mr. Hawker himself; and in it he would sit, sheltered from storm, and look forth over the wild sea, dreaming, composing poetry, or watching ships scudding before the gale dangerously near the coast. ”

“ Evident traces of a kitchen midden were discovered in the bog close to the hut, but at a level slightly above it. The height of the interior of the most perfect of the huts, without making any allowance for a sloping roof, being only four feet, they would thus correspond to the souterrains of a rath. It has been suggested that they were used by the crannog occupants only for the preservation of perishable commodities ”

“ Our solitary blankets formed poor padding against the inequalities of the rough-hewn boards, and equally ineffectual to keep out the cold draughts which whistled under the ill-fitting door of the hut. A wayside house on the road to the mines is merely a rough log hut of a single room ”