Fisherman's hut

“ The ancient hut of a fisherman is outlined on the grassy slope. Below it, crowding reeds rustle in the current; and where they are more sparse they fashion concentric orbs upon the gleaming, fleeing water. The landscape has something exotic or antique about it. You are no matter where in the world or among the centuries. You are on some corner of the eternal earth, where men and women are drawing near to each other, and cling together while they wrap themselves in mystery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet as the days draw in, lights go on earlier, and our hut grows fuller and work more engrossing. Outside the laughing, gurgling wavelets, chasing each other round the rocks, are replaced by white-crested breakers that rage along the shore at high tide and cut us off from the town. ”

“ In many parts of the world he built his wooden hut on piles out from the shore of some lake, so that he had his food supply in the fish under the floor, and was also more secure against the wild animals when his dwelling had to be defended on one side instead of on four. ”

“ These natives have a curious predilection for building their huts on the sea-shore, and place them below the level of low water. They begin this curious style of architecture by building a long pier, or rather jetty, which extends far into the sea, and which keeps open a communication between the house and the shore.
At the end of this jetty the hut itself is situated, and is made of boarded walls and a thatched roof. Great as is the labor that is bestowed upon it, the house does not come up to our ideas of comfort. ”

“ In comfortable contrast with this lonesomeness, sitting among the deepening shadows on a dark clump of moorland, or bent, on the left-hand corner of the picture, is the dreamiest little hut, with the rarest blue smoke rising out of its crazy chimney, and floating like a spirit among the dark grays and purples sleeping on the hillsides. ”

“ This is far too fine a trough for a tumble-down hut like ours. Why, there is scarcely a place in the roof where the rain does not come through. If we were to keep this trough in such a hut, it would be spoiled in a month. You must go back to your fish and ask it for a new hut. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact, except to one accustomed to the woods, it would be dangerous to go far away from the hut. As long as it is fine, you will find your way back by following your own tracks, but if the weather changed suddenly, and it came on to snow, your case would be hopeless. One of the advantages of placing our hut on a stream is that it forms a great aid to finding one's way back. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are compared to haystacks in appearance, and are made of reeds. Each house is situated in a neat enclosure made of the same reed, within which a goat or two, a cow, and some fowls are usually kept. The hut is divided into two portions, one being for the master and the other for the women. His bed is supported on a wooden framework and covered with the skins of wild animals. There is no window, and the place of a door is taken by a mat. ”

“ With twenty-five men in sleeping bags, which they seldom left, two in each bag, packed around the sides of the hut, a stove fed with stearine burning in the center for the cooking of the insufficient food to which they were reduced, and all air from without excluded, the hut became a place as much of torture as of refuge. ”

“ Building a hut is nothing new to us, and we are anxious to begin fishing and wandering about, so if you will show us where we can cut enough good heavy saplings for supports, we will start right at it. We can have them cut and in place before dinner and then the men can bring us the boards after dinner and we will be all shipshape by nightfall,” said Garry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By the side of a little lateral gully on the right hand in descending the river is a beehive hut among the streamers' mounds; it is quite intact, and shelter may be taken in it from a passing storm. It is, however, not prehistoric, but is a miners' cache. ”

“ As a rule, the climate is so warm that houses are but little needed, all that is required being a simple roof above the head. The ordinary kind of hut is nothing more than a mere shed, a sort of barn without the walls, supported on posts and thatched with leaves. From the posts and rafters are hung the personal goods of the natives, such as fans, paddles, clubs, blow guns, bows and arrows, and similar articles, while from one or two of the cross-beams is sure to be hanging the singular cassava press, which will be presently described. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ducks which have hitherto flown sky-high in order to cross the danger-zone will now pass quite low along the new waterway, and even prefer it to crossing the cover at hazard, however high.
A typical day’s fowling in mid-marisma may be described. The night has been spent in a reed-built hut charmingly situate on a mud-islet half-an-acre in extent, and commanding unequalled views of flooded and featureless marisma. At 4 A.M. we turn out and by the dim light of a lantern embark in a cajon (punt) , serenaded by the croaks and gabbling of flamingoes somewhere out in the dark waters. ”

“ But that was down in the creek, round the hut was the plain, barren here as elsewhere; no effort had been made to cultivate it or improve it, and the desert came up to the very doors. The only sign of human life was the refuse from the small household—an empty tin or two, fragments of broken bottles, and scraps of rag and paper, only that and the hut itself, and a small yard for horses and cattle, that was all—not a tree, not a green thing. ”

“ The inmates light rolls of birch-bark that one may be enabled to see the interior; but every appearance of neatness and picturesqueness which the hut presented from without vanishes when one gets inside. Beneath one's feet is a hard, damp, earth floor; directly above are the blackened and soot-covered rafters. Poles supported horizontally from these rafters are equally greasy and blackened, and pervading the darkness is a dirty and strong fishy odor. In the middle of the floor, and occupying considerable space, is a square area,—the fireplace. On its two sides mats are spread. ”

“ The hut is at the end of the open space, the last on the right hand on the quay. I found it empty from top to bottom, like all the others. Not an article of furniture, not a pane of glass, was left in it! There was nothing except some bundles of straw and the last leg of the big arm-chair, which was smouldering in the chimney. ”

“ The inner walls of the hut are often ornamented by rough [Pg 24] scrollwork in different coloured clays. A small aperture serves as window, and over the entrance is hung a reed mat, made by lashing together with the sinews of cattle a number of dried reeds. The floors are of mud, beaten down till perfectly hard and fairly even. They are smeared over afresh every week or ten days, in order to preserve them, and also as a matter of cleanliness, much as an English housewife scrubs her floors. In the more wealthy dwellings the floors are from time to time smeared over with bullock's blood. ”

“ One awesome night, dark as pitch, when I lay awake in the hut and listened to the rain pouring and the rush of Roaring Creek as it carried its rain-swollen waters into the Arthur River, my thoughts veered round to the perennial scone. The rats that night were holding high carnival. They had discovered some figs in my swag. Among the bric-à-brac in the men’s hut, which was our kitchen, dining-room, and drawing-room in one, I had noticed a frying-pan with a large hole in the bottom. ”

“ The tiny hut is an abode of darkness made visible by a single candle, mounted in its own grease in the worst available position for giving light, lest the opening of the door cast the faintest beam into the sunken road outside. ”

“ And snatching a rope from the inside of the hut, he sprang down the steep bank to the shore, though the faces of his followers showed plainly enough that, terrible as dead men always are to the living, there was something about this river-waif which made him a horror greater even than the dead who die on land. ”

“ 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 ”

“ In the woods, where the country is not very rocky, we sometimes met with a piece of the bark of a tree, bent in the middle, and set upon the ends*, with a piece set up against that end on which the wind blows. This hut serves them for a habitation, and will contain a whole family; for, when the weather is cold, which is frequently the case in winter, they find it necessary to lie very close for the benefit of that warmth to which each mutually contributes a share. ”

“ This arrangement also permits the owner of the hut to hang to the beam and posts sundry articles which he does not wish to be injured by being thrown on the ground, such as gourds, baskets, assagai-shafts, spoons, and other implements.
Ranged carelessly round the hut are the rude earthenware pots, in which the Kaffir keeps his beer, his milk, and present stores of grain. The floor of the hut is always kept scrupulously clean, and is generally as hard as stone, being made of well-kneaded clay laid very smoothly, and beaten until it is quite hard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ They told us they had been out upon a seal hunt on the ice, and were returning home: we proposed to join them, and all were soon in motion again; but another hour brought sunset, and we learned that their snow village of eight huts was still a long way off, so we hired them, at the rate of a needle for each Esquimaux, to build us a hut, which they completed in an hour; it was 8 feet in diameter, 51⁄2 feet high, and in it we all passed the night. Perhaps [209] the records of architecture do not furnish another instance of a dwelling-house so cheaply constructed! ”

“ The large amount of timber which went to make the hut was mostly landed. The ponies and dogs were sleeping in the sun on shore. A large green tent housed the hut builders, and the site for the hut was levelled.
"Such weather in such a place comes nearer to satisfying my ideal of perfection than any condition I have ever experienced. The warm glow of the sun with the keen invigorating cold of the air forms a combination which is inexpressibly health-giving and satisfying to me, whilst the golden light on this wonderful scene of mountain and ice satisfies every claim of scenic magnificence. ”