 CHAPTER 14 After a few days, finding the trade beginning to slacken, we hove our anchor up, set our topsails, ran the stars and stripes up to the peak, fired a gun, which was returned from the prosceo, and left the little town a stern, standing out of the bay, imbaring down the coast again for Santa Barbara. As we were now going to Lourdes, we had a fair wind, and a plenty of it. After doubling point piños, we bore up, set setting soles alo and aloft, and were walking off at the rate of eight or nine knots, promising to traverse in twenty-four hours the distance, which we were nearly three weeks in traversing on the passage up. We passed point conception at a flying rate, the wind blowing so that it would have seemed half a gale to us if we had been going the other way in close hold. As we journeyed to the islands of Santa Barbara, it died away a little, but we came to at our old anchoring ground in less than thirty hours from the time of leaving Monterey. Here everything was pretty much as we left it, the large bay without a vessel in it, the surf roaring and rolling in upon the beach, the white mission, the dark town, and the high, treeless mountains. Here too we had our south-easter tax aboard again, slip ropes, buoy ropes, cells furrowed with reefs in them, and rope yarns for gaskets. We lay at this place about a fortnight, employed in landing goods and taking off hides, occasionally, when the surf was not high, but there did not appear to be one half of business doing here that there was in Monterey. In fact, so far as we were concerned, the town might almost as well have been in the middle of the quarter-years. We laid a distance of three miles from the beach, and the town was nearly a mile farther, so that we saw little or nothing of it. Occasionally we landed a few goods, which were taken away by Indians in large, clumsy ox carts, with the bow of the yoke on the ox's neck instead of under it, and with small, solid wills. A few hides were brought down, which we carried off in the California style. This we had now got pretty well accustomed to and hardened to also, for it does require a little hardening, even to the toughest. The hides are brought down dry, or they will not be received. When they are taken from the animal they have holes cut in the ends and are staked out, and thus dried in the sun without shrinking. They are then doubled once, lengthwise, with the hair side usually in, and sent down upon mules or in carts, and piled above high water mark, and then we take them upon our heads, one at a time, or two if they are small, and wade out with them and throw them into the boat, which, as there are no warbs, we usually kept anchored by a small cage or keelock. Just outside of the surf. We all provided ourselves with thick scotch caps, which would be soft to the head, and at the same time protect it, for we soon learned that, however it might look or feel at first, the headwork was the only system for California. For besides the seas breaking high often obliged us to carry the hide so, in order to keep them dry, we found that, as they were very large and heavy, and nearly as stiff as boards, it was the only way that we could carry them with any convenience to ourselves. Some of the crew tried other expedients, saying that they looked too much like West India Negroes, but they all came to it at last. The great art is getting them on the head. We had to take them from the ground, and as they were often very heavy, and as wide as the arms could stretch, and were easily taken by the wind, we used to have some trouble with them. I have often been laughed at myself, and joined in laughing at others, pitching ourselves down in the sand in trying to swing a large hide upon our heads, or nearly blown over with one in a little gust of wind. Captain made it harder for us by telling us that it was California fashion to carry two on the head at a time, and he insisted upon it, and we did not wish to be outdone by other vessels. We carried two for the first few months, but after falling in with a few of their hide drogers, and finding that they carried only one at a time, we knocked off the extra one, and thus made our duty somewhat easier. After our heads had become used to the weight, and we had learned the true California style of tossing a hide, we could carry off two or three hundred in a short time, without much trouble, but it was always wet work, and if the beach was stony, bad for our feet, for we of course went barefoot on this duty, as no shoes could stand such constant wetting with salt water. And after this we had a pull of three miles, with a loaded boat, which often took a couple of hours. We had now got well settled down into our harbor duties, which as they are good deal different from those at sea, it may be well enough to describe. In the first place all hands are called daylight, or rather especially if the days are short, before daylight, as soon as the first gray of the morning. The cook makes his fire in the galley, the steward goes about his work in the cabin, and the crew rig the head pump, and wash down the decks. The chief mate is always on deck, but takes no active part, all the duty coming upon the second mate, who has to roll up his trousers, and paddle about the decks barefooted, like the rest of the crew. The washing, swabbing, squelching, etc. lasts, or is made to last, until eight o'clock, when breakfast is ordered, four and aft. After breakfast, for which half an hour is allowed, the boats are lowered down and made fast as turn, or out to the swinging booms by guest warps, and the crew are turned to upon their day's work. This is various, and its character depends upon circumstances. There is always more or less of boating in small boats, and if heavy goods are to be taken ashore, or hides are to be brought down to the beach for us, then all hands are sent ashore with an officer in the longboat. Then there is a good deal to be done in the hold, goods to be broken out, and cargo to be shifted, to make room for hides, or to keep the trim of the vessel. In addition to this, the usual work upon the rigging must be going on. There is much of the latter kind of work, which can only be done when the vessel is in port. Everything too must be kept taut and in good order, spun yarn made, chafing gear repaired, and all the other ordinary work. The great difference between sea and harbor duty is in the division of time. Instead of having a watch on deck and a watch below, as at sea, all hands are at work together except at mealtimes, from daylight till dark, and at night an anchor watch is kept, which, with us, consisted of only two at a time, all the crew taking turns. An hour is allowed for dinner, and at dark the decks are cleared up. The boats hoisted, supper ordered, and at eight the lights are put out, except in the binocle where the glass stands, and the anchor watch is set. Thus when at anchor the crew have more time at night, standing watch only about two hours, but have no time to themselves in the day, so that reading, mending, clothes, etc., has to be put off until Sunday, which is usually given. Some religious captains give their crews Saturday afternoons to do their washing and mending in, so that they may have their Sundays free. This is a good arrangement, and goes far to account for the preference sailors usually show for vessels under such command. We were well satisfied if we got even Sunday to ourselves. For, if any hides came down on that day, as was often the case when they were brought from a distance, we were obliged to take them off, which usually occupied half a day. Besides, as we now lived on fresh beef in a one-bolac a week, the animal was almost always brought down on Sunday, and we had to go ashore, kill it, dress it, and bring it on board, which was another interruption. Then too our common day's work was protracted and made more fatiguing by hides coming down late in the afternoon, which sometimes kept us at work in the surf by starlight, with the prospect of pulling on board and stowing them all away before supper. But all these little vexations and labors would have been nothing, they would have been passed by as the common evils of a sea life, which every sailor, who was a man, will go through without complaint, were it not for the uncertainty, or worse than uncertainty, which hung over the nature and length of our voyage. Here we were in a little vessel with a small crew, on a half-silverized coast at the ends of the earth, and with a prospect of remaining an indefinite period, two or three years at the least. When we left Boston, we supposed that ours was to be a voyage of eighteen months, or two years at most. But upon arriving on the coast, we learned something more of the trade, and found that in the scarcity of hides, which was yearly greater and greater, it would take us a year at least to collect our own cargo, besides the passage out and home, and that we were also to collect a cargo for a large ship belonging to the same firm, which was soon to come on the coast, and to which we were to act as tender. We had heard rumors of such a ship to follow us, which had leaked out from the captain and mate, but we passed them by as mere yarns to our arrival, when they were confirmed by the letters which we brought from the owners to their agent. The ship, California, belonging to the same firm, had been nearly two years on the coast getting a full cargo, and was now at San Diego, from which port she was expected to sell in a few weeks for Boston, and we were to collect all the hides we could and deposit them at San Diego, when the new ship, which would carry forty thousand, was to be filled and sent home, and then we were to begin anew upon our own cargo. Here was a glimmy prospect indeed. The Legota, a smaller ship than the California, carrying only thirty-one or thirty-two thousand, had been two years getting her cargo, and we were to collect a cargo of forty thousand besides our own, which we would be twelve or fifteen thousand, and hides were said to be growing scarcer. Then too this ship, which had been to us a worse phantom than any flying Dutchman, was no phantom, or ideal thing, but had been reduced to a certainty. So much so that a name was given to her, and it was said that she was to be the alert, a well-known India man, which was expected in Boston in a few months when we sailed. There could be no doubt, and all looked black enough. Hence were thrown out about three and four years. The older sailors said they never should see Boston again, but should lay their bones in California, and a cloud seemed to hang over the whole voyage. Hence we were not provided for so long a voyage, and clothes and all sailors' necessities were excessively dear, three or four hundred percent advance upon the Boston prices. This was bad enough for the crew, but still worse was it for me, who did not mean to be a sailor for life, having intended only to be gone eighteen months or two years. Three or four years might make me a sailor in every respect. Paint in habits, as well as body, no one's volans, and would put all my companions so far ahead of me that a college degree in a profession would be in vain to think of. And I made up my mind that, feel as I might, a sailor I might have to be, and to command a merchant vessel might be the limit of my ambition. Besides the length of the voyage, in the hard and exposed life, we were in the remote parts of the earth. On an almost desert coast, in a country where there is neither law nor gospel, and where sailors are at their captain's mercy, there being no American consul, or anyone to whom a complaint could be made. We lost all interest in the voyage, cared nothing about the cargo, which we were only collecting for others, began to patch our clothes, and felt as though our fate was fixed beyond all hope of change. In addition to, and perhaps partly as a consequence of, this state of things, there was trouble brewing on board the vessel. Our mate, as the first man is always called, par excellence, was a worthy man, a more honest, upright, and kind-hearted man I never saw. But he was too easy and amiable for the mate of a merchant man. He was not the man to call a sailor a son of a bitch and knock him down with a hand-spike. Perhaps he really lacked the energy and spirit for such a voyage as ours, and for such a captain. Captain Thompson was a vigorous, energetic fellow. As sailors say, he had an a lazy bone in him. He was made a steel and well-bone. He was a man to tow the mark, and to make everyone else step up to it. During all the time that I was with him, I never saw him sit down on deck. He was always active in driving, severe in his discipline, and expected the same of his officers. The mate, not being enough of a driver for him, he was dissatisfied with him, became suspicious that discipline was getting relaxed, and began to interfere in everything. He drew the reins tighter, and, as in all quarrels between officers, the sailor's side with the one who treats him best, he became suspicious of the crew. He saw that things went wrong, that nothing was done with a will, and in his attempt to remedy the difficulty by severity he made everything worse. We were, in all respects, unfortunately situated, captain officers and crew, entirely unfitted for one another, and every circumstance and event was like a two-edged sword, and cut both ways. The length of the voyage, which made us dissatisfied, made the captain at the same time see the necessity of order and strict discipline, and the nature of the country, which caused us to feel that we had nowhere to go for redress, but were at the mercy of a hard master, made the captain understand, on the other hand, that he must depend entirely upon his own resources. Severity created discontent, and signs of discontent provoked severity. Then, too, ill-treatment and dissatisfaction are no linimenta laborum, and many a time I have heard the sailors say, that they should not mind the length of the voyage and the hardships if they were only kindly treated and if they could feel that something was done to make work lighter in life easier. We felt as though our situation was a call upon our superiors to give us occasional relaxations and to make our yoke easier, but the opposite policy was pursued. We were kept at work all day when in port, which, together with a watch at night, made us glad to turn in as soon as we got below. Thus we had no time for reading, or which was of more importance to us, for washing and mending our clothes. And then, when we were at sea, selling from port to port, instead of giving us watch and watch, as was the custom on board every other vessel on the coast, we were all kept on deck and at work, rain or shine, making spun yarn and rope, and at other work in good weather, and picking oakum when it was too wet for anything else. All hands were called to come up and see it rain, and kept on deck hour after hour in drenching rain, standing round the deck so far apart as to prevent our talking with one another, with our tarpolines and oilcloth jackets on, picking old rope to pieces or laying up gaskets and robans. This was often done too when we were lying in port with two anchors down, and no necessity for more than one man on deck as a lookout. This is what is called hazing a crew, and working their old iron up. While laying at Santa Barbara, we encountered another south-easter, and like the first, it came on in the night. The great black clouds moving round from the southward, covering the mountain, and hanging down over the town, appearing almost to rest upon the roofs of the houses. We made sail, slipped our cable, cleared the point, and beat about for four days in the offing, under closed cell, with continual rain and high seas and winds. No wonder thought we. They have no rain in the other seasons, for enough seem to have fallen in those four days to last through a common summer. On the fifth day it cleared up, after a few hours, as is usual, of rain coming down like a four-hour shower bath, and we found ourselves drifted nearly ten links from the anchorage. And having light headwinds, we did not return until the sixth day. Having recovered our anchor, we made preparations for getting underway to go down to Lourdes. We had hoped to go directly to San Diego, and thus fallen with the California before she sailed for Boston, but our orders were to stop at an intermediate port called San Pedro, and as we were to lie there a week or two, and the California was to sail in a few days, we lost the opportunity. Just before sailing, the captain took on board a short, red-haired, round-shoulder, vulgar-looking fellow, who had lost one eye and squinted with the other, and introducing him as Mr. Russell, told us he was an officer on board. This was too bad. We had lost overboard on the passage, one of the best of our number, another had been taken from us in a pointed clerk, and thus weakened and reduced. Instead of shipping some hands to make our work easier, he had put another officer over us to watch and drive us. We now had four officers and only six in the folk soul. This was bringing her down too much by the stern for our comfort. Leaving Santa Barbara, we coasted along down, the country appearing level or moderately uneven, and for the most part sandy and treeless, until doubling a high sandy point we let go our anchor at a distance of three-and-a-half miles from shore. It was like a vessel bound to St. John's, Newfoundland, coming to anchor on the Grand Banks, for the shore, being low, appeared to be at a greater distance than it actually was, and we thought we might as well have stayed at Santa Barbara and sent our boat down for the hides. The land was of a clay equality, and as far as the eye could reach entirely bare of trees and even shrubs, and there was no sign of a town, not even a house to be seen. What brought us into such a place we could not conceive? No sooner had we come to anchor than a slip-rope, and the other preparations for southeasters were got ready, and there was reason enough for it, for we lay exposed to every wind that could blow, except the northerly winds, and they came over a flat country with a rake of more than a leg of water. As soon as everything was snug on board, the boat was lowered and we pulled ashore, our new officer, who had been several times in the port before, taking the place of steersmen. As we drew in we found the tide low, and the rocks and stones covered with kelp and seaweed, lying bare for the distance of nearly an eighth of a mile. Leaving the boat and picking our way barefoot over these, we came to what is called the landing place at Highwater Mark. The soil was, as it appeared at first, loose and clay-y, and except the stalks of the mustard plant, there was no vegetation. Just in front of the landing and immediately over it was a small hill, which, from its being not more than 30 or 40 feet high, we had not perceived from our anchorage. Over this hill we saw three men coming down, dressed partly like sailors and partly like Californians, one of them having on a pair of untanned leather trousers and a red Bezu shirt. When they reached us we found that they were Englishmen. They told us that they had belonged to a small Mexican brig, which had been driven ashore here in the southeaster, and now lived in a small house just over the hill. Going up this hill with them we saw close behind it a small, low building with one room, containing a fireplace, cooking apparatus, etc., and the rest of it unfinished and used as a place to store hides and goods. This they told us was built by some traders in the Pueblo, a town about 30 miles in the interior to which this was the port, and used by them as a storehouse and also as a lodging place when they came down to trade with the vessels. These three men were employed by them to keep the house in order and to look out for the things stored in it. They said that they had been there nearly a year and had nothing to do most of the time, living upon beef, hard bread, and forholies, a peculiar kind of bean very abundant in California. The nearest house they told us was a rancho, or cattle farm, about three miles off and one of them went there at the request of our officer to order a horse to be sent down, with which the agent who was on board might go up to the Pueblo. From one of them, who was an intelligent English sailor, I learned a good deal in a few minutes conversation about the place, its trade, and the news from the southern ports. San Diego, he said, was about 80 miles till the word of San Pedro, and they had heard from there by a Mexican who came up on horseback that the California had sell for Boston, and that the Lugobre, which had been in San Pedro only a few weeks before, was taking in her cargo for Boston. The Ayacucha was also there, loading for Culeo, and the little Loriote, which had run directly down from Monterey where we left her. San Diego, he told me, was a small snug place, having very little trade, but decidedly the best harbor on the coast, being completely landlocked, and the water as smooth as a duckpond. This was the depot for all vessels engaged in the trade, each one having a large house there, built of rough boards, in which they stowed their hides as fast as they collected them in their trips up and down the coast. And when they had procured a full cargo, spent a few weeks there taking it in, smoking ship, laying in wood and water, and making other preparations for the voyage home. The Lugota was now about this business, when we should be about it was more than I could tell, two years at least I thought to myself. I also learned, to my surprise, that the desolate looking place we were in furnished more hides than any port on the coast. It was the only port for a distance of eighty miles, and about thirty miles in the interior was a fine, plain country, filled with herds of cattle, in the center of which was the Pueblo de Los Angeles, the largest town in California, and several of the wealthiest missions, to all of which San Pedro was the seaport. Having made arrangements for a horse to take the agent to the Pueblo the next day, we picked our way again over the green, slippery rocks and pulled towards the brig, which was so far off that we could hardly see her in the increasing darkness, and when we got on board the boats were hoisted up and the crew at supper. Going down into the folk-soul, eating our supper and lighting our cigars and pipes, we had as usual to tell what we had seen or heard ashore. We all agreed that it was the worst place we had seen yet, especially for getting off hides, and our lying off at so great a distance looked as though it was bad for southeasters. After a few disputes as to whether we should have to carry our goods up the hill or not, we talked to San Diego, the probability of seeing a logota before she sailed, etc., etc. The next day we pulled the agent ashore and he went up to visit the Pueblo and the neighboring missions. Ending a few days as a result of his labors, large ox carts and droves of mules loaded with hides were seen coming over the flat country. We loaded our longboat with goods of all kinds, light and heavy, and pulled ashore. After landing and rolling them over the stones upon the beach, we stopped, waiting for the carts to come down the hill and take them, but the captain soon settled the matter by ordering us to carry them all up to the top, saying that that was California fashion. So what the oxen would not do, we were obliged to do. The hill was low but steep, and the earth, being clayy and wet with the recent rains, was but bad holding ground for our feet. The heavy barrels and cask were rolled up with some difficulty, getting behind and putting our shoulders to them. Now and then our feet slipping added to the danger the casks rolling back upon us, but the greatest trouble was with the large boxes of sugar. These we had to place upon oars, and lifting them up, rest the oars upon our shoulders and creep slowly up the hill with the gate of a funeral procession. After an hour or two of hard work, we got them all up and found the carts standing full of hides, which we had to unload and to load the carts again with our own goods. The lazy Indians who came down with them, squatting on their hands, looking on, doing nothing, and when we asked them to help us, only shaking their heads or drawing out, no quiero. Having unloaded the carts we started up the Indians, who went off, one on each side of the oxen, with long sticks, sharpened at the end to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving labor in California, two Indians to two oxen. Now the hides which we got down, and for this purpose we brought the boat round to the place where the hill was steeper, and threw them off, letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we had to let ourselves down and set them going again, and in this way became covered with dust in our clothes torn. After we had the hides all down, we were obliged to take them on our heads and walk over the stones and through the water to the boat. The water and the stones together would wear out a pair of shoes a day, and as shoes were very scarce and very dear, we were compelled to go barefooted. At night we went on board, having had the hardest and most disagreeable days work that we had yet experienced. For several days we were employed in this manner, until we had landed forty or fifty tons of goods, and brought on board about two thousand hides. When the trade began to slacken and we were kept at work on board during the latter part of the week, either in the hold or upon the rigging. On Thursday night there was a violent blow from the northward, but as this was offshore we had only to let go our other anchor and hold on. We were called up at night to send down the royal yards. It was as dark as a pocket, in the vessel pitching at her anchors. I went up to the fore in Stimson to the main, and we soon had them down ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Fore, as we had now become used to our duty aloft, everything above the cross-trees was left to us, who were the youngest of the crew, except one boy. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15, Part 1 of Two Years Before the Mast This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Two years before the mast, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Chapter 15, Flogging For several days the captain seemed very much out of humor. Nothing went right or fast enough for him. He quarreled with the cook, and threatened to flog him for throwing wood on deck, and had to dispute with a mate about raving a Spanish burton. The mate, saying that he was right, and had been taught how to do it by a man who was a sailor. This the captain took in Duggin, and they were at swords-points at once, but his displeasure was chiefly turned against a large, heavy-molded fellow from the middle states, who was called Sam. This man, hesitated in his speech, was rather slow in his motions, and was only a tolerably good sailor, but usually seemed to do his best, yet the captain took a dislike to him, thought he was surly and lazy, and, if you once give a dog a bad name, as the sailor phrase is, he may as well jump overboard. The captain found fault with everything this man did, and hazed him for dropping a marlin spike from the main yard, where he was at work. This of course was an accident, but it was set down against him. The captain was on board all Friday, and everything went on hard and disagreeably, and the more you drive a man, the less he will do. Was as true with us as with any other people. We worked late Friday night, and returned to early Saturday morning. About ten o'clock the captain ordered our new officer, Russell, who by this time had become thoroughly disliked by all the crew, to get the gig ready to take him ashore. John the Swede was sitting in the boat alongside, and Mr. Russell and I were standing by the main hatchway, waiting for the captain, who was down in the hold where the crew were at work. When we heard his voice raised in violent dispute with somebody, when there was with the mate or one of the crew I could not tell, and then came blows and scuffling. I ran to the side and Beck and Dejohn came aboard, and we leaned down the hatchway, and though we could see no one, yet we knew the captain had the advantage, for his voice was loud and clear. You see your condition! You see your condition! Will you ever give me any more of your jaw? No answer, and then came wrestling and heaving as though the man was trying to turn him. You may as well keep still, for I have got you, said the captain, then came the question. Will you ever give me any more of your jaw? I never gave you any, sir. Said Sam, for it was his voice that we heard, though low and half joked. That's not what I ask you! Will you ever be imputed to me again? I never have been, sir, said Sam. Answer my question, or I'll make a spread-angle of you! I'll flog you by God! I'm no Negro slave, said Sam, then I'll make you one, said the captain, and he came to the hatchway, and sprang on deck, threw off his coat, and, rolling up his sleeves, called out to the mate. Seize that man up, Mr. Amorzim! Seize him up! Make a spread-angle of him! I'll teach you all who's master aboard! The crew and officers followed the captain up the hatchway, but it was not until after repeated orders that the mate laid hold of Sam, who made no resistance, and carried him to the gangway. What are you going to flog that man for, sir? Said John, the suede to the captain. Upon hearing this, the captain turned upon John, but knowing him to be quick and resolute, he ordered the steward to bring the irons, and, calling upon Russell to help him, went up to John. Let me alone, said John. I'm willing to be put in irons. You need not use any force! When putting out his hands the captain slipped the irons on, and sent him after the quarter-deck. Sam by this time was seized up, as it is called, that is, placed against the shrouds with his wrists made fast to them, his jacket off and his back exposed. The captain stood on the break of the deck, a few feet from him, and a little raised, so as to have a good swing at him, and held in his hand the end of a thick, strong rope. The officers stood round, and the crew grouped together in the waste. All these preparations made me feel sick and almost faint, angry and excited as I was. A man, a human being, made in God's likeness, fastened up and flogged like a beast. A man, too, whom I had lived with, eaten with, and stood watch with for months, and knew so well. If a thought of resistance crossed the minds of any of the men, what was to be done? Their time for it had gone by, and there were left only two men besides Stimson and myself, and a small boy of ten or twelve years of age, and Stimson and I would not have joined the men in a mutiny as they knew. And then on the other side there were, besides the captain, three officers, steward, agent, and clerk, and the cabins supplied with weapons. But besides the numbers, what is there for sailors to do? If they resist it as mutiny, and if they succeed and take a vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, their punishment must come, and if they do not yield, what are they to be for the rest of their lives? If a sailor resists his commander, he resists the law, and piracy or submission is his only alternative. And as it was, they saw it must be borne, and it is what a sailor ships for. Swinging the rope over his head and bending his body so as to give it full force, the captain brought it down upon the poor fellow's back, once, twice, six times. Will you ever give me any more of your jaw? The man writhed with pain, but said not a word. Three times more. This was too much, and he muttered something which I could not hear. This brought as many more as the man could stand, when the captain ordered him to be cut down. Now for you! said the captain, making up to John, and taking his irons off. As soon as John was loose, he ran forward to the folksal. Bring that man aft! shouted the captain. The second mate, who had been in the folksal with these men the early part of the voyage, stood still in the waist, and the mate walked slowly forward. But our third officer, anxious to show his zeal, sprang forward over the windlass, and laid hold of John. But John soon threw him from him. The captain stood on the quarter-deck, bare-headed, eyes flashing with rage, in his face as red as blood, swinging the rope and calling out to his officers. Drag him aft! Lay hold of him! I'll sweeten him! Etc. Etc. The mate now went forward, and told John quietly to go aft. And he, seeing resistance was vane, threw the blaggered third mate from him, and said he would go aft of himself, that they should not drag him, and went up to the gangway, and held out his hands. But as soon as the captain began to make him fast, the indignity was too much, and he struggled. But the mate and Russell holding him, he was soon seized up. When he was made fast he turned to the captain, his suit rolling up his sleeves getting ready for the blow, and asked him what he was to be flogged for. Have I ever refused my duty, sir? Have you ever known me to hang bakker to be insolent, or not to know my work? No, said the captain. It is not that that I flog you for. I flog you for interference, for asking questions! Can't someone ask questions here without being flogged? No, shouted the captain. Nobody shall open his mouth aboard this vessel but myself! And he began laying the blows upon his back, swinging half round between each blow to give it full effect. As he went on his passion increased, and he danced about the deck calling out as he swung the rope. If you want to know what I flog you for, I'll tell you. It's because I like to do it, because I like to do it! It suits me! That's what I do it for! The man rised under the pain until he could endure it no longer, when he calmed out, with an exclamation more common among foreigners than with us. Oh, Jesus Christ! Don't call on Jesus Christ! shouted the captain. He can't help you! Call on Frank Thompson! He's the man! He can help you! Jesus Christ can't help you now! At these words, which I shall never forget, my blood ran cold. I could look on no longer. Disgusted, sick, I turned away, and leaned over the rail, and looked down into the water. A few rapid thoughts, I don't know what. Our situation, a resolution to see the captain punished when we got home, crossed my mind. But the falling of the blows and the cries of the man called me back once more. At length they ceased, and turning round I found that the mate, at a signal from the captain, had cast him loose. Just doubled up with pain, the man walked slowly forward, and went down into the foxtel. Everyone else stood still at his post, while the captain, swelling with rage, and with the importance of his achievement, walked the quarter-deck, and at each turn he came forward, calling out to us. You see your condition! You see where I've got you all! And you know what to expect. You've been mistaken in me. You didn't know what I was. Now you know what I am. I'll make you toe the mark every soul of you or I'll flog you all for an aft from the boy up! You've got a driver over you! Yes, a slave driver, a nigger driver! I'll see who'll tell me he isn't a nigger slave! Like this and the like manner, equally calculated to quiet us, and to allay any apprehensions of future trouble, he entertained us for about ten minutes when he went below. Soon after John came aft, with his bareback covered with stripes and wheels in every direction, and dreadfully swollen, and asked the steward to ask the captain to let him have some sav, or balls him to put upon it. No, said the captain, who hurt him from below. Tell him to put his shirt on, that's the best thing for him, and put me ashore in the boat. Nobody is going to lay up on board this vessel. He then called to Mr. Russell to take those two men and two others in the boat, and pull him ashore. I went for one. The two men could hardly bend their backs, and the captain called to them to give way. But finding they did their best, he let them alone. The agent was in the stern sheets, but during the whole pole, a leg or more, not a word was spoken. We landed, the captain, agent, and officer went up to the house, and left us with the boat. I and the man with me stayed near the boat, while John and Sam walked slowly away and sat down on the rocks. They talked some time together, but at length separated each sitting alone. I had some fears of John. He was a foreigner and violently tempered, and under suffering, and he had his knife with him, and the captain was to come down alone to the boat. But nothing happened, and we went quietly on board. The captain was probably armed, and if either of them had lifted a hand against him, they would have had nothing before them but flight, and starvation in the woods of California, or captured by the soldiers and Indians whom the offer of twenty dollars would have set upon them. After the day's work was done, we went down into the folk-soul and ate our plain supper, but not a word was spoken. It was Saturday night, but there was no song, no sweet hearts and wives. A gloom was over everything. The two men lay in their births, groaning with pain, and we all turned in, but for myself not to sleep. A sound coming now and then from the births of the two men showed that they were awake, as awake they must have been, for they could hardly lie in one posture long. The dim, swinging lamp shed its light over the dark hole in which we lived, and many and various reflections and purposes coursed through my mind. I had no real apprehension that the captain would lay a hand on me, but I thought of our situation, living under a tyranny with an ungoverned, smuggering fellow administering it, of the character of the country we were in, the length of the voyage, the uncertainty attending our return to America, and then, if we should return, the prospect of obtaining justice and satisfaction for these poor men. And I vowed that, if God should ever give me the means, I would do something to redress the grievances and relieve the sufferings of that class of beings with whom my lot had so long been cast. The next day was Sunday. We worked as usual, washing decks, etc., until breakfast time. After breakfast we pulled the captain ashore, and, finding some hides there which had been brought down the night before, he ordered me to stay ashore and watch them, saying that the boat would come again before night. They left me, and I spent a quiet day on the hill, eating dinner with three men at the little house. Unfortunately they had no books, and after talking with them and walking about I began to grow tired of doing nothing. The little brig, the home of so much hardship and suffering, lay in the offing, almost as far as one could see. And the only other thing which broke the surface of the great bay was a small, dreary-looking island, steep and conical, of a clayy soil, and without the sign of vegetable life upon it, yet which had a peculiar and melancholy interest, for on the top of it were buried the remains of an Englishman, the commander of a small merchant brig, who died while lying in this port. It was always a solemn and affecting spot to me. There it stood desolate, and in the midst of desolation, and there were the remains of one who died, and was buried alone and friendless. Had it been a common bearing place it would have been nothing. The single body corresponded well with a solitary character of everything around. It was the only spot in California that impressed me with anything like poetic interest. Then, too, the man died far from home, without a friend near him. By poison it was suspected, and no one to inquire into it. And without funeral rites. The mate, as I was told, glad to have him out of the way, hurrying him up the hill and into the ground, without a word or a prayer. I looked anxiously for a boat during the latter part of the afternoon, but none came until towards sundown, when I saw a speck on the water, and as it drew near I found it was the gig with the captain. The hides, then, were not to go off. The captain came up the hill, with a man bringing my monkey jacket in a blanket. He looked pretty black, but inquired whether I had enough to eat, told me to make a house out of the hides and keep myself warm. As I should have to sleep there among them, and to keep good watch over them, I got a moment to speak to the man who brought my jacket. How do things go aboard, said I. Bad enough, said he, hard work and not a kind word spoken. What, said I, have you been at work all day? Yes, no more Sunday for us. Everything has been moved in the hold from stem to stern, and from the waterways to the kielsen. I went up from the house to supper. We had, for holies, the perpetual food of the Californians, but which, when well-cooked, are the best being in the world, coffee made of burnt wheat and hard bread. After our meal the three men sat down by the light of a tallow candle with a pack of greasy Spanish cards, to the favorite game of treyente y uno, a sort of Spanish everlasting. I left them and went out to take up my buvwak among the heights. It was now dark, the vessel was hidden from sight, and except the three men in the house there was not a living soul within a leg. The coyotes, a wild animal of a nature and appearance between that of the fox and the wolf, set up their sharp quick bark, and two owls at the end of the two distant points running out into the bay, on different sides of the hill where I lay, kept up their alternate dismal notes. I had heard the sound before at night, but did not know what it was, until one of the men, who came down to look at my quarters, told me it was the owl, mellowed by the distance and heard alone at night, it was the most melancholy and boating sound. Through nearly all the night they kept it up, answering one another slowly at regular intervals. This was relieved by the noisy coyotes, some of which came quite near to my quarters, and were not very pleasant neighbors. The next morning before sunrise the long boat came ashore, and the hides were taken off. CHAPTER XV PART II We lay at San Pedro about a week, engaged in taking off hides and in other labors, which had now become our regular duties. I spent one more day on the hill, watching a quantity of hides and goods, and this time succeeded in finding a part of a volume of Scott's pirate in a corner of the house, but it failed me at a most interesting moment, and I betook myself to my acquaintances on shore, and from them learned a good deal about the customs of the country, the harbors, etc. This they told me was a worse harbor than Santa Barbara for Southeasters, the bearing of the headland being a point and a half more to Wynard, and it being so shallow that the sea broke often as far out as where we lay in Inker. The gale for which we slipped at Santa Barbara had been so bad a one here that the whole bay, for a leak out, was filled with the foam of the breakers, and seas actually broke over the dead man's island. The legoda was lying there, and slipped at the first alarm, and in such haste that she was obliged to leave her launch behind her at Inker. The little boat rode it out for several hours, pitching at her Inker, and standing with her stern up almost perpendicularly. The men told me that they watched her till towards night, when she snapped her cable and drove up over the breakers high and dry upon the beach. On board the pilgrim everything went on regularly, each one trying to get along as smoothly as possible, but the comfort of the voyage was evidently at an end. That is a long lane which has no turning. Every dog must have his day, and mine will come by and by, and the like proverbs were occasionally quoted, but no one spoke of any probable end to the voyage, or of Boston, or anything of the kind. Or if he did, it was only to draw out the perpetual, surly reply from his shipmate. Boston, is it? You may think you're a star as if you ever see that place. You had better have your back sheathed and your head coppered and your feet shod, and make out your log for California for life. Or else something of this kind. Before you get to Boston the hinds will wear all the hair off your head, and you'll take up all your wages and clothes, and won't have enough to buy a wig with. The flogging was seldom, if ever, alluded to by us in the folk-soul. If anyone was inclined to talk about it, the others, with a delicacy which I hardly expected to find among them, always stopped him, or turned the subject. But the behavior of the two men who were flogged towards one another showed a consideration which would have been worthy of admiration in the highest walks of life. Sam knew John had suffered solely on his account, and in all his complaints he said that, if he alone had been flogged it would have been nothing, but he never could see him without thinking that he had been in means of bringing this disgrace upon him. And John never, by word or deed, let anything escape him to remind the other that it was by interfering to save a shipmate that he had suffered. Neither made it a secret that they thought the Dutchman Bill and Foster might have helped them, but they did not expect it of Stimson or me. While we showed our sympathy for their suffering and our ignoenation of the Captain's violence, we did not feel sure that there was only one side to the beginning of the difficulty, and we kept clear of any engagement with them except our promise to help them when they got home. Note, owing to the change of vessels that afterwards took place, Captain Thompson arrived in Boston nearly a year before the pilgrim and was off on another voyage beyond the reach of these men. Soon after the publication of the first edition of this book in 1841, I received a letter from Stimson dated at Detroit, Michigan, where he had re-entered mercantile life, from which I make this extract. As to your account of the flogging scene, I think you have given a fair history of it, and, if anything, been too lenient toward Captain Thompson for his brutal, cowardly treatment of those men. As I was in the hold at the time the affray commenced, I will give you a short history of it as near as I can recollect. We were breaking out goods in the forehold, and in order to get at them we had to shift our hides from forward to aft. After having removed part of them we came to the boxes and attempted to get them out without moving any more of the hides. While doing so, Sam accidentally hurt his hand, and, as usual, began swearing about it, and was not sparing of his oaths, although I think he was not aware that Captain Thompson was so near him at the time. Captain Thompson asked him in no moderate way. What was the matter with him? Sam, on account of the impediment in his speech, could not answer immediately, although he endeavored to, but as soon as possible answered in a manner that almost anyone would, under the like circumstances, yet I believe not with the intention of giving a short answer. But being provoked and suffering pain from the injured hand, he perhaps answered rather short or sullenly. Thus commenced the scene you have so vividly described, and which seems to me exactly the history of the whole affair without any exaggeration. End note. Having got all our spare room filled with hides, we hoeve up our anchor and made sail for San Diego. In no operation can the disposition of a crew be better discovered than in getting under way. Where things are done, with a will, everyone is like a cat aloft. Sales are loosed in an instant. Each one lays out his strength on his hand-spike, and the windlass goes briskly round with a cry of, Yo, heave, hoe! Heave, and pawl, heave, hardy hoe! And the chorus of cheerly men cats the anchor. But with us, at this time, it was all dragging work. No one went to loft beyond his ordinary gate, and the chain came slowly in over the windlass. The mate between the night-heads exhausted all official rhetoric and calls of heave with a will, heave hardy men, heave hardy, heave and raise the dead, heave and away, et cetera, et cetera. But it would not do. Nobody broke his back or his hand-spike by his efforts. And when the cat-tackle fall was strung again, and all hands cook, steward, and all laid hold to cat the anchor, instead of the lively song of cheerly men, in which all hands join in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy, silent pull. And as sailors say, a song is as good as ten men, the anchor came to the cat-head pretty slowly. Give us cheerly! said the mate. But there was no cheerly for us, and we did without it. The captain walked the quarter-deck and said not a word. He must have seen the change, but there was nothing which he could notice officially. We sailed leisurely down the coast before a light, fair wind keeping the land well aboard, and saw two other missions, looking like blocks of white plaster shining in the distance, one of which, situated on the top of a high hill, was San Juan Capestrino, under which vessels sometimes came to anchor in the summer season and take off hides. That sunset on the second day we had a large and well-wooded headland directly before us, behind which lay the little harbor of San Diego. We were recalmed off this point all night, but the next morning, which was Saturday the 14th of March, having a good breeze, we stood round the point. And hauling our wind brought the little harbor, which is rather the outlet of a small river right before us. Everyone was desirous to get a view of the new place, a chain of high hills beginning at the point, which was on our labored hand coming in, protected the harbor on the north and west, and ran off into the interior as far as the eye could reach. On the other side the land was low and green, but without trees. The entrance is so narrow as to admit but one vessel at a time, the current swift, and the channel runs so near to a low stony point that the ship's sides appeared almost to touch it. There was no town in sight but on the smooth sand beach abreast, within a cable's length of which three vessels lay moored, were four large houses, built of rough boards and looking like the great barns in which ice is stored on the borders of the large ponds near Boston, with piles of hides standing round them, and men in red shirts and large straw hats walking in and out of the doors. These were the hide houses. Of the vessels, one, a short, clumsy little hermaphrodite brig, we recognized as our old acquaintance, the Lorient. Another, with sharp bows and raking masks, nearly painted and tarred, and glittery in the morning sun, with the blood-red banner and cross of St. George at her peak, was the handsome Iacucho. The third was a large ship, with top-gallant masks housed and sails unbent, and looking as rusty and worn as two years high at droging could make her. This was the Legoda. As we drew near, carried rapidly along by the current, we overhauled our chain and clued up the topsills. Let go the anchor! said the captain, but either there was not chain enough ford of the windlass, or the anchor went down foul, or we had too much headway on, for it did not bring us up. Pay out chain! shouted the captain, and we gave it to her, but it would not do. Before the other anchor could be let go, we drifted down, broad-sight on, and went smash into the Legoda. Her crew were at breakfast in the focsel and her cook, seeing us coming, rushed out of his galley and called up the officers and men. Fortunately, no great harm was done. Her jib-boom passed between our fore and main-must, carrying away some of our rigging and breaking down the rail. She lost her martin-yell. This brought us up, and as they paid out chain, we swung clear of them and let go the other anchor, but this had as bad luck as the first. For, before anyone perceived it, we were drifting down upon the laureot. The captain now gave out his orders rapidly and fiercely, sheeding home the top-sills and backing and filling the cells, in hope of starting or clearing the anchors. But it was all in vain, and he sat down on the rail, taking it very leisurely and calling out to captain Nye that he was coming to pay him a visit. We drifted fairly into the laureot, her larbored bow into our starboard quarter, carrying away part of our starboard quarter-relling and breaking off her larbored bunkan in one or two stanchions above the deck. We saw our handsome sailor, Jackson, on the folk-sill, with the sandwich islanders working away to get us clear. After paying out chain, we swung clear, but our anchors were no doubt a foul of hers. We manned the windlass and hoeve and hoeve away, but to no purpose. Sometimes we got a little upon the cable, but a good surge would take it all back again. We now begin to drift down toward the Ayacucho, when her boat put off and brought her commander, Captain Wilson, on board. He was a short, active, well-built man about fifty years of age, and being some twenty years older than our captain, and a thorough seaman. He did not hesitate to give his advice, and from giving advice he gradually came to taking the command. The crew and us went to heave and went to pawl, and backing and filling the top-sills, setting and taking in Jeb and Tricill whenever he thought best. Our captain gave a few orders, but as Wilson gentrally countermanded them, saying in an easy, fatherly kind of way, �Oh, no, Captain Thompson, you don�t want the Jeb honor!� or �It isn�t time yet to heave!� he soon gave it up. We had no objections to this state of things, for Wilson was a kind man, and had an encouraging and pleasant way of speaking to us, which made everything go easily. After two or three hours of constant labor at the windlass, heaving and yo-ho-ho-ing with all our might, we brought up the anchor, with the loriot�s small bower fast to it. Having cleared this and let it go, and cleared our haws, we got our other anchor, which had dragged half over the harbour. �Now,� said Wilson, �I�ll find you a good berth!� And settling both the top-sills, he carried us down and brought us to anchor in handsome style, directly abreast of the hidehouse which we were to use. Having done this he took his leave, while we furl the cells and got our breakfast, which was welcomed to us, for we had worked hard, and eaten nothing since yesterday afternoon, and it was nearly twelve o�clock. After breakfast and until night, we were employed in getting out the boats and mooring ship. After supper two of us took the captain on board the logota. As he came alongside he gave his name, and the mate in the gangway called out to Captain Bradshaw, down the companion way. �Captain Thompson has come aboard, sir!� As he brought his brig with him, asked the rough-o�d fellow in a tone which made itself heard for an aft. This mortified our captain not a little, and it became a standing joke among us, and indeed over the coast for the rest of the voyage. The captain went down into the cabin, and we walked forward and put our heads down the folksle, where we found the men at supper. �Come down, shipmates! Come down!� said they. As soon as they saw us, shipmate is the term by which sailors address one another when not acquainted. And we went down and found a large, high folksle, well-lighted, and a crew of twelve or fourteen men eating out of their kids and pans, and drinking their tea, and talking and laughing, all as independent and easy as so many wood-saw-years clerks. This looked like comfort and enjoyment, compared with the dark little folksle and scanty, discontented crew of the brig. It was Saturday night. They had got through their work for the week, and being snuggly moored had nothing to do until Monday again. After two years' hard service they had seen the worst, and all, of California, had got their cargo nearly stowed and expected to sell on a week or two for Boston. We spent an hour or more with them talking over California matters, until the word was passed, �Bill Grims away!� And we went back to our brig. The Legodos were a hearty, intelligent set, a little roughened, and their clothes passed and old from California ware, all able seamen, and between the ages of twenty and thirty-five or forty. They inquired about our vessel, they used to jump board, etc., and were not a little surprised at the story of the flogging. They said there were often difficulties in the vessels on the coast, and sometimes knock-downs and fightings, but they had never heard before of a regular seizing up and flogging. Spread Eagles were a new kind of bird in California. Sunday they said was always given in San Diego, both at the hide-houses and on board the vessels, a large number usually going up to the town on Liberty. We learned a good deal from them about the curing and stowing of hides, etc., and they were desirous to have the latest news, seven months old, from Boston. One of their first inquiries was for Father Taylor, the seamen's preacher in Boston, then followed the usual strain of conversation and queries and stories, and jokes, which one must always hear in a ship's folksal, but which are, perhaps, after all, no worse, though more gross and coarse, than those one may chance to hear from some well-dressed gentleman around their tables. CHAPTER XVI The next day being Sunday, after washing and curing decks and getting breakfast, the mate came forward with leave for one watch to go ashore on Liberty. We drew lots and it fell to the larbord, which I was in. Instantly all was preparation, buckets of fresh water, which we were allowed in port, and soap were put to use. Go ashore jackets and trousers got out and brushed, pumps, neckerchiefs, and hats overhauled, one lending to another, so that among the whole each got a good foot out. A boat was called to pull the Liberty men ashore, and we sat down in the stern sheets, as big as pay passengers, and jumping ashore set out on our walk for the town, which was nearly three miles off. It is a pity that some other arrangement is not made in merchant vessels with regard to the Liberty Day. When in port the crews are kept at work all the week, and the only day they are allowed for rest or pleasure is Sunday, and unless they go ashore on that day they cannot go at all. I have heard of a religious captain who gave his crew Liberty on Saturdays after twelve o'clock. This would be a good plan, if shipmasters would bring themselves to give their crews so much time. For young sailors especially, many of whom have been brought up with regard for the sacredness of the day, this strong temptation to break it is exceedingly injurious. As it is, it can hardly be expected that a crew, on a long and hard voyage, will refuse a few hours of freedom from toil and the restraints of a vessel, and an opportunity to tread the ground and see the sights of society and humanity, because it is a Sunday. They feel no objection to being drawn out of a pit on the Sabbath Day. I shall never forget the delightful sensation of being in the open air, with the birds singing around me and escaped from the confinement, labor, and strict rule of a vessel, of being once more in my life, though only for a day my own master. A sailor's Liberty is but for a day, yet while it lasts it is entire. He is under no one's eye and can do whatever and go wherever he pleases. This day for the first time I may truly say in my whole life I felt the mean of a term which I had often heard, the sweets of Liberty. Stimson was with me and turning our backs upon the vessel, we walked slowly along, talking of the pleasure of being our own masters. Of the times past, when we were free and in the midst of friends in America, and of the prospect of our return, and planning where we would go and what we would do when we reached home, it was wonderful how the prospect brightened and how short and tolerable the voyage appeared when viewed in this new light. Things looked differently from what they did when we talked them over in the little dark foalxel the night after the flogging at San Pedro. It is not the least of the advantages of allowing sailors occasionally a day of liberty, that it gives them a spring and makes them feel cheerful and independent, and leads them insensibly to look on the bright side of everything for some time after. Stimson and I determined to keep as much together as possible, though we knew that it would not do to cut our shipmates. For knowing our birth and education, they were a little suspicious that we would try to put on the gentlemen when we got ashore, and would be ashamed of their company. And this won't do with Jack. When the voyage is at an end, you do as you please, but so long as you belong to the same vessel, you must be shipmate to him on shore, or he will not be a shipmate to you on board. And for warrant of this before I went to sea, I took no long togs with me, and being dressed like the rest in white duck trousers, blue jacket and straw hat, which would prevent my going into better company, and showing no disposition to avoid them, I set all suspicion at rest. Our crew fell in with some who belonged to the other vessels, and sailor-like steered for the first grog shop. This was a small adobe building of only one room, in which were liquors, dry goods, West India goods, shoes, bread, fruits, and everything which is vendible in California. It was kept by a Yankee, a one-eyed man, who belonged formally to Fall River, came out to the Pacific in a whale ship, left her at the Sandwich Islands, and came to California and set up a pole peria. Jimson and I followed in our shipmates' wake, knowing that to refuse to drink with them would be the highest of front, but determining to slip away the first opportunity. It is the universal custom with sailors, for each one in his turn to treat the whole, calling for a glass all round, and obliging everyone who is present, even to the keeper of the shop, to take a glass with him. When we first came in, there was some dispute between our crew and the others, whether the newcomers or the old California rangers should treat first, but it being settled in favor of the latter, each of the crews of the other vessels treated all round in their turn. And as there were a good many present, including some loafers who had dropped in, knowing what was going on, to take advantage of Jack's hospitality, and the liquor was a real, twelve and a half cents a glass, it made somewhat of a hole in their lockers. It was now our ship's turn, and Stimson and I, desires to get away, stepped up to call for glasses, but we soon found that we must go in order, the oldest first, for the old sailors did not choose to be preceded by a couple of youngsters, and, bon gré, bon gré, we had to wait our turn, with a two-fold apprehension of being too late for our horses and of getting too much. For drink you must every time, and if you drink with one and not with the other, it is always taken as an insult. Having at length gone through our turns and acquitted ourselves of all obligations, we slipped out and went about among the houses, endeavoring to find horses for the day, so that we might ride round and see the country. At first we had little success, and all we could get out of the lazy fellows in reply to our questions, being the eternal drawing, quincebe, who knows, which is an answer to all questions. After several efforts, we at length fell in with a little Sandwich Island boy, who belonged to Captain Wilson of the Ayakucho, and was well acquainted in the place. And he, knowing where to go, soon procured us two horses, ready-saddled and bridled, each with a lasso coiled over the pommel. These we were to have all day, with the privilege of riding them down to the beach at night for a dollar, which we had to pay in advance. Horses are the cheapest thing in California, very fair ones not being worth more than ten dollars a piece, and the poorer being often sold for three and four. In taking a day's ride, you pay for the use of the saddle, and for the labor and trouble of catching the horses. If you bring the saddle back safe, they care but little what becomes of the horse. Mounted on our horses, which were spirited beasts, and which, by the way, in this country, are always steered in the cavalry fashion by pressing the contrary rain against the neck, and not by pulling on the bit. We started off on a fine run over the country. The first place we went to was the Old Runus Presidio, which stands on a rising ground near the village, which it overlooks. It is built in the form of an open square, like all the other presidios, and was in a most runous state, with the exception of one side in which the common nut lived with his family. There were only two guns, one of which was spiked, and the other had no carriage. Twelve half-clothes and half-starved-looking fellows composed the garrison, and they, it was said, had not a musket apiece. The small settlement lay directly below the fort, composed of about forty dark brown-looking huts, or houses, and three or four larger ones, white-washed, which belonged to the gente de garrison. This town is not more than half as large as Monterey or Santa Barbara, and has little or no business. From the presidio we rode off in the direction of the mission, which we were told was three miles distant. The country was rather sandy, and there was nothing for miles which could be called a tree, but the grass grew green in rank, and there were many bushes and thickets. And the soil is said to be good. After a pleasant ride of a couple miles we saw the white walls of the mission, and, fording a small stream, became directly before it. The mission is built of adobe and plastered. There was something decidedly striking in its appearance. A number of irregular buildings connected with one another and disposed in the form of a hollow square, with a church at one end rising above the rest, with a tower containing five bell-freeze, in each of which hung a large bell, and with very large rusty iron crosses at the tops. Just outside of the buildings and under the walls stood twenty or thirty small huts, melt of straw, and of the branches of trees grouped together, in which a few Indians lived, under the protection and the service of the mission. Entering a gateway we drove into the open square, in which the stillness of death reigned. On one side was the church, on another a range of high buildings with graded windows, a third was a range of smaller buildings or offices, and the fourth seemed to be little more than a high connecting wall. Not a living creature could we see. We rode twice from the square in the hope of waking up someone, and in one circuit saw a tall monk, with shaving head, sandals, and the dress of the gray friars, passed rapidly through the gallery, but he disappeared without noticing us. After two circuits we stomped our horses, and at last a man showed himself in front of one of the small buildings. We rode up to him and found him dressed in the common dress of the country, with a silver chain around his neck, supporting a large bunch of keys. From this we took him to be the steward of the mission, and, addressing him as Mayor Doma, received a low vow and an invitation to walk into his room. Making our horses fast we went in. It was a plain room, containing a table, three or four chairs, a small picture or two of some saint, or a miracle, or margidim, and a few dishes and glasses. Hail guan de coso de que omer, said I, from my grammar. Si, señor, said he, que gusto used it. Mentioning for holies, which I knew they must have if they had nothing else, and beef and bread, with a hint for wine if they had any, he went off to another building across the court, and returned in a few minutes with a couple of Indian boys bearing dishes and a decanter of wine. The dishes contained baked meats for holies stewed with peppers and onions, boiled eggs, and California flour baked into a kind of macaroni. These, together with the wine, made the most sumptuous meal we had eaten since we left Boston, and, compared with the fare we had lived upon for seven months, it was a real banquet. After dispatching it, we took out some money and asked him how much we were to pay. He shook his head, and crossed himself, saying that it was charity, that the Lord gave it to us. Knowing the amount of this to be that he did not sell, but was willing to receive a present, we gave him ten or twelve rails, which he pocketed with admirable nonchalance, saying, Dios se lo pague. Between leave of him, we rode out to the Indian's huts. The little children were running about among the huts, stark, naked, and the men wore not much more, but the women had generally coarse gowns of a sort of toe cloth. The men are employed most of the time in tending the cattle of the mission, and in working in the garden, which is a very large one, including several acres, and filled, it is said, with the very best fruits of the climate. The language of these people, which is spoken by all the Indians of California, is the most brutish without any exception that I ever heard, or that could well be conceived of. It is a complete slabber. The words fall off the ends of their tongues, and a continual slabbering sound is made in the cheeks outside of the teeth. It cannot have been the language of Montezuma and the independent Mexicans. Here among the huts we saw the oldest man that I had ever met with, and indeed I never suppose that a person could retain life and exhibit such marks of age. He was sitting out in the sun, leaning against the side of a hut, and his legs and arms, which were bare, were of a dark red color. The skin withered and shrunk up like burnt leather, and the limbs not larger round than those of a boy of five years. He had a few gray hairs, which were tied together at the back of his head, and he was so feeble when we came up to him, he raised his hand slowly to his face, and taking hold of the lids with his fingers, lifted them up to look at us, and being satisfied, let them drop again. All command over the lids seemed to have gone. I asked his age, but could get no answer, but King Sabay, and they probably did not know it. Leaving the mission, we returned to the village, going nearly all the way on a full run. The California horses have no medium gate, which is pleasant between walking and running. For as there are no streets and parades, they have no need of the genteel trot, and their rides usually keep them at the top of their speed until they are tired, and then let them rest themselves by walking. The fine air of the afternoon, the rapid gate of the animals, who seemed almost to fly over the ground, and the excitement and novelty of the motion to us, who had been so long could find on shipboard, were exhilarating beyond expression, and we felt willing to ride all day long. Coming into the village, we found things looking very lively. The Indians, who always have a holiday on Sunday, were engaged at playing a kind of running game of ball on a level piece of ground near the houses. The old ones sat down in a ring looking on, while the young ones, men, boys, and girls, were chasing the ball and throwing it with all their might. Some of the girls ran like greyhounds. At every accident or remarkable feat, the old people set up a deafening, screaming, and clapping of the hands. Several blue jackets were reeling about among the houses, which showed that the Poperias had been well patronized. One or two of the sailors had got on horseback. But being rather indifferent horsemen, and the Mexicans having given them vicious beasts, they were soon thrown, much to the amusement of the people. A half dozen sandwich islanders from the hide houses in the two brigues, bold riders, were dashing about on the full gallop, hallowing and laughing like so many wild men. It was now nearly sundown, and Stimson and I went into a house and sat quietly down to rest ourselves before going to the beach. Several people soon collected to see Los Marineros Inglésis, and one of them, a young woman, took a great fancy to my pocket-hinger chief, which was a large silk one that I had before going to sea, and a hand-simmer one than they had been in the habit of seeing. Of course I gave it to her, which brought me into high favor, and we had a present of some pears and other fruits, which we took down to the beach with us. When we came to leave the house, we found that our horses, which we had tied to the door, were both gone. We had paid for them to ride down to the beach, but they were not to be found. We went to the man of whom we hired them, but he only shrugged his shoulders and to our question, Where are the horses? Only answered, Quinsabe, but as he was very easy and made no inquiries for the saddles, we saw he knew very well where they were. After a little trouble, determined not to walk to the beach, a distance of three miles, we procured two, at four rail-alls more apiece, with two Indian boys to run behind and bring them back. Determined to have the go out of the horses for our trouble, we went down at full speed, and were on the beach in a few minutes. Wishing to make our liberty last as long as possible, we rode up and down among the hide-houses, amusing ourselves with seeing the men as they arrived. That was now dusk, some on horseback and others on foot. The sandwich islanders rode down and were in high snuff. We inquired for our shipmates, and were told that two of them had started on horseback and been thrown, or had fallen off, and were seen heading for the beach, but staring pretty wild, and by the looks of things would not be down much before midnight. The Indian boys having arrived, we gave them our horses, and having seen them safely off, held for a boat, and went aboard. Thus ended our first liberty-day on shore. We were well tired, but had had a good time, and were more willing to go back to our old duties. About midnight we were woke up by our two watchmates, who had come aboard in high dispute. It seems that they had started to come down on the same horse, doubled-backed, and each was accusing the other of being the cause of his fall. They soon, however, turned in and fell asleep, and probably forgot all about it. For the next morning the dispute was not renewed. CHAPTER XVII San Diego The next sound that we heard was, and looking up the scuttle, saw that it was just daylight. Our liberty had now truly taken flight, and with it we laid away our pumps, stockings, blue jackets, acre-chiefs, and other go-o-shore paraphernalia, and put it on old duck-trazzers, red shirts, and scotch caps, begin taking out and landing our hides. For three days we were hard at work in this duty. From the gray of the morning until starlight, with the exception of a short time allowed for meals. For landing and taking on board hides, San Diego is decidedly the best place in California. The harbor is small and landlocked. There is no surf. The vessels lie within a cable's length of the beach, and the beach itself is smooth, hard sand, without rocks or stones. For these reasons it is used by all the vessels in the trade as a depot, and indeed it would be impossible when loading with the cured hides for the passage home to take them on board at any of the open ports without getting them wet in the surf, which would spoil them. We took possession of one of the hide houses which belonged to our firm, and had been used by the California. It was built to hold forty thousand hides, and we had the pleasing prospect of filling it before we could leave the coast. And towards this our thirty-five hundred, which we brought down with us, would do but little. There was skier cement on board who did not go often into the house looking round, reflecting, and making some calculation of the time it would require. The hides, as they come rough and uncured from the vessels, are piled up outside of the houses once they are taken and carried through a regular process of pickling, drying, and cleaning, and stood away in the house, ready to be put on board. This process is necessary in order that they may keep during a long voyage and in warm latitudes. For the purpose of curing and taking care of them, an officer and a part of the crew of each vessel are usually left ashore, and it was for this business we found that our new officer had joined us. As soon as the hides were landed, he took charge of the house, and the captain intended to leave two or three of us with him, hiring sandwich islanders in our places on board. But he could not get any sandwich islanders to go, although we offered them fifteen dollars a month. For the report of the flogging had got among them, and he was called Aloi Maikai, no good, and that was the end of the business. They were however willing to work on shore, and four of them were hired to put with Mr. Russell to cure the hides. After landing our hides, we next sent ashore our spare spars and rigging, all the stores which we did not need in the course of one trip to Wendard, and in fact everything which we could spare, so as to make room on board for hides, among other things the pigs died, and with it old Bess. This was an old sow that we had brought from Boston, and which lived to get round Cape Horn, where all the other pigs died from cold and wet. Reports said that she had been a Canton voyage before. She had been the pet of the cook during the whole passage, and he had fed her with the best of everything, taught her to know his voice, and to do a number of strange tricks for his amusement. Tom Kringle says that no one can fathom a Negro's affection for a pig, and I believe he is right, for it almost broke our poor darkies heart when he heard that Bess was to be taken ashore, and that he was to have the care of her no more. He had depended upon her as a solace during the long trips up and down the coast. "'Obey orders if you break orders,' said he. "'Break hearts,' he might have said, and lent a hand to get her over the side, trying to make it as easy for her as possible. We got a whip on the main yard, and hooking it to a strap round her body swayed away, and giving a wink to one another ran her chalk up to the yard arm, said the mate. But he evidently enjoyed the joke. The pig squealed like the crack of doom, and tears stood in the poor darkies eyes, and he muttered something about having no pity on a dumb beast. "'Dumb beast,' said Jack, if she's what you call a dumb beast, then my eyes ain't mates.' This produced a laugh from all but the cook. He was too intent upon seeing her safe in the boat. He watched her all the way ashore, where upon her landing she was received by a whole troupe of her kind, who had been set ashore from the other vessels, and had multiplied and formed a large common wealth. From the door of his galley the cook used to watch them in the maneuvers, setting up a shout and clapping his hands whenever best came off victorious in the struggles for pieces of raw hide and half-picked bones which were lying about the beach. In the day he saved all the nice things, and made a bucket of swill, and asked us to take it ashore in the gig, and looked quite disconcerted when the mate told him that he would pitch the swill overboard and him after it, if he saw any of it go into the boats. We told them that he thought more about the pig than he did about his wife, who lived down in Robinson's alley, and indeed he could hardly have been more attentive, for he actually, on several nights after dark, when he thought he would not be seen, scold himself ashore in a boat, with a bucket of nice swill, and returned, like Leander from crossing the hellish pond. The next day the other half of our crew went ashore on liberty, and left us on board, to enjoy the first quiet Sunday we had had upon the coast. Here were no hides to come off, and no southeaster to fear. We washed and mended our clothes in the morning, and spent the rest of the day in reading and riding. Several of us wrote letters to send home by the Legoda. At twelve o'clock the Ayakucho dropped her for topsoil, which was a signal for her sailing. She unmoored and warped down into the bite, from which she got under way. During this operation her crew were a long time heaving at the windlass, and I listened to the musical notes of a Sandwich Islander named Mahana, who sang out for them. Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always have one to sing out, which is done in high and long-drawn notes, varying with the motion of the windlass. This requires a clear voice, strong lungs, and much practice to be done well. This fellow had a very peculiar, wild sort of note, breaking occasionally into falsetto. The sailors thought that it was too high, and not enough for the bosson's hoarseness about it, but to me it had a great charm. The harbour was perfectly still, and his voice rang among the hills as though it could have been heard for miles. Towards sundown, a good breeze having sprung up, the Ayakucho got under way, and with her long, sharp head cutting elegantly through the water on the top bowlen, she stood directly out of the harbour and bore away to the southward. She was bound to Kaleo, and thence to the Sandwich Islands, and expected to be on the coast again in eight or ten months. At the close of the wig we were ready to sail, but were delayed a day or two by the running away of Foster, the man who had been our second mate, and was turned forward. From the time that he was broken he had had a dog's birth on board the vessel, and determined to run away at the first opportunity. Having shipped for an officer, when he was not half a seamen, he found little pity with the crew, and was not man enough to hold his ground among them. The captain called him a soldier, and promised to ride him down as he would the main tack. Note, soldier, soldier, is the worst term of a reproach that can be applied to a sailor. It signifies a skulk, a shirk, one who is always trying to get clear of work, and is out of the way or hanging back when duty is to be done. Marine is the term applied more particularly to a man who is ignorant and clumsy about seamen's work. A greenhorn, a land-lover. To make a sailor's shoulder a hand-spike and walk four and a half the deck, like a sentry, is as ignominious a punishment as can be put upon him. Such a punishment inflicted upon an able seamen in a vessel of war might break down his spirit more than a flogging. End note. The captain called him a soldier, and promised to ride him down as he would the main tack. And when officers are once determined to ride a man down, it is a gone case with him. He had had several difficulties with the captain and asked Leib to go home on the Legoda, but this was refused him. One night he was insolent to an officer on the beach and refused to come aboard in the boat. He was reported to the captain, and as he came aboard it being past the proper hour, he was called and laughed, and told that he was to have a flogging. Immediately he fell down on deck, calling out, Don't flog me, Captain Thompson, don't flog me! And the captain, angry and disgusted with him, gave him a few blows over the back with a rope's end, and sent him forward. He was not much hurt, but a good deal frightened, and made up his mind to run away that night. This was managed better than anything he ever did in his life, and seemed really to show some spirit and forethought. He gave his bedding and mattress to one of the Legodas crew, who promised to keep it for him, and took it aboard a ship as something which he had bought. He then unpacked his chest, putting all his valuable clothes into a large canvas bag, and told one of us who had the watch to call him at midnight. Coming on deck at midnight and finding no officer on deck, and all still aft, he lowered his bag into a boat, got softly down into it, cast off the painter, and let it drop down silently with the tide until he was out of hearing, when he sculled ashore. The next morning, when all hands were mustered, there was a great stirrer to find Foster. Of course we would tell nothing, and all they could discover was that he had left an empty chest behind him, and that he went off in the boat, for they saw the boat lying high and dry on the beach. After breakfast, the captain went up to the town and offered a reward of $20 for him, and for a couple of days, the soldiers, Indians, and all others who had nothing to do were scouring the country for him on horseback, but without effect, for he was safely concealed all the time within 50 rods of the hide houses. As soon as he had landed, he went directly to Legoda's hide house, and a part of her crew, who were living there on shore, promised to conceal him in his traps until the pilgrim should sell, and then to intercede with Captain Bradshaw to take him on board his ship. Just behind the hide houses among the thickets and underwood was a small cave, the entrance to which was only known to two men on the beach, and which was so well concealed that though, when afterwards I came to live on shore, it was shown to me two or three times I was never able to find it alone. To this cave, he was carried before daybreak in the morning, and supplied with bread and water, and there remained until he saw us under way, and well round the point, Friday, March 27th. The captain, having given up all hope of finding foster, and being unwilling to delay any longer, gave orders for unmooring ship, and we made sell, dropping slowly down with the tide and light wind. We left letters with Captain Bradshaw to take to Boston, and were made miserable by hearing him say that he should be back again before we left the coast. The wind, which was very light, died away soon after we doubled the point, and we lay becalmed for two days, not moving three miles the whole time, and a part of the second day were almost within sight of the vessels. On the third day about noon, a cool sea breeze came rippling and darkening the surface of the water, and by sundown we were off San Juan, which is about 40 miles from San Diego, and is called Halfway to San Pedro, where we were bound. Our crew was now considerably weakened. One man we had lost overboard, another had been taken aft as clerk, and a third had run away, so that besides Stimson and myself, there were only three able seamen and one boy of twelve years of age. With this diminished and discontented crew, and in a small vessel, we were now to battle the watch through a couple of years of hard service. Yet there was not one who was not glad that Foster had escaped. For shiftless and good for nothing as he was, no one could wish to see him dragging on a miserable life, cow down and disheartened. And we were all rejoiced to hear upon our return to San Diego, about two months afterwards, that he had been immediately taken aboard the Legoda and had gone home in her, on regular seamen's wages. After a slow passage of five days, we arrived on Wednesday the 1st of April at our old anchoring ground at San Pedro. The bay was as deserted and looked as dreary as before and formed no pleasing contrast with the security and snugness of San Diego, and the activity and interest which the loading and unloading of four vessels gave to that seamen. In a few days, the hides began to come slowly down, and we got into the old business of rolling goods up the hill, pitching hides down, and pulling our long leg off and on. Nothing of note occurred while we were lying here, except that an attempt was made to repair the small Mexican brig, which had been cast away in the southeaster, and which now lay up high and dry over one reef of rocks and two sandbanks. Our carpenter surveyed her and pronounced her capable of being refitted, and in a few days, the owners came down from the pueblo, and having waited for the high spring tides with the help of our cables, cages, and crews, hauled her off after several trials. The three men at the house on shore, who had formally been a part of her crew, now joined her and seemed glad enough at the prospect of getting off the coast. On board our own vessel, things went on in the common monotonous way. The excitement, which immediately followed the flogging scene and passed off, but the effect of it upon the crew, and especially upon the two men themselves, remained. The different manner in which these men were affected, corresponding to their different characters, was not a little remarkable. John was a foreigner and high-tempered, and though mortified as anyone would have been at having had the worst of an encounter, yet his chief filling seemed to be anger, and he talked much of satisfaction and revenge if he ever got back to Boston. But with the other it was very different. He was an American and had had some education, and this thing coming upon him seemed completely to break him down. He had a filling of the degradation that had been inflicted upon him, which the other man was incapable of. Before that he had a good deal of fun in him and amused us often with queer Negro stories. He was from a slave state, but afterwards he seldom smiled, seemed to lose all life and elasticity and appeared to have but one wish, and that was for the voyage to be at an end. I have often known him to draw a long sigh when he was alone, and he took but little part or interest in John's plans of satisfaction and retaliation. After a stay of about a fortnight, during which we slipped for one Southeaster, and we're at sea two days, we got underway for Santa Barbara. It was now the middle of April, the Southeaster season was nearly over. And the light regular winds, which blow down the coast, begin to set settling in during the latter part of the day. Against these we beat slowly up to Santa Barbara, a distance of about 90 miles in three days. There we found Lion and Anchor, the large Genoese ship, which we saw in the same place on the first day of our coming upon the coast. She'd been out to San Francisco, or as it is called, chalk up to Windward, and had stopped at Monterey on her way down, and was shortly to proceed to San Pedro and San Diego, and thence, taking in her cargo, to sell for Valparaiso and Cadiz. She was a large, clumsy ship, and with her top masks stayed forward and high poop deck, looked like an old woman, with a crippled back. It was now the close of Lent, and on good Friday she had all her yards a cock bill, which is customary among Catholic vessels. Some also have an effigy of Judas, which the crew amused themselves with keel hauling and hanging by the neck from the yard arms. End of chapter 17.