 Chapter 25, RUMOURS OF WAR Saturday, November 14. This day we got under way, with the agent and several Mexicans of note as passengers bound up to Monterey. We went to shore in the gig to bring them off with their baggage and found them waiting on the beach, and a little afraid about going off, as the surf was running very high. This was nuts to us, for we liked to have a Mexican wet with salt water, and then the agent was very much disliked by the crew, one and all. And we hoped, as there was no officer in the boat, to have a chance to duck them, for we knew they were such marines that they would not know whether it was our fault or not. Accordingly, we kept the boat so far from shore as to oblige them to wet their feet in getting into her, and then waited for a good high coma, and letting the head slew a little round, sent the whole force of the sea into the stern sheets, drenching them from head to feet. The Mexicans sprang out of the boat, swore, and chucked themselves, and protested against trying it again, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the agent could prevail upon them to make another attempt. The next time we took care, and went off easily enough, and pulled aboard. The crew came to the side to hoist in their baggage, and heartily enjoyed the half-drowned looks of the company. Everything being now ready and the passengers aboard, we ran up the ensign in the broad penit, for there was no man of war, and we were the largest vessel on the coast, and the other vessels ran up their ensigns. Having hoved short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard. At the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible everything was sheeded home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and cat-headed and the ship under headway. We were determined to show the spouter how things could be done in a smart ship, with a good crew, though not more than half their number. The royal yards were all crossed at once, and royal and sky-soul set, and as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all were lost, active as cats, laying up on the yards and booms, weaving the studying-silgear, and sail after sail the captain piled upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a great white cloud resting upon a black speck. Before we doubled the point we were going at a dashing rate, and leaving the shipping far astern. We had a fine breeze to take us through the canal, as they call this bay a forty miles long by ten wide. The breeze died away at night, and we were becalmed all day on Sunday, about half way between Santa Barbara and Point Conception. Sunday night we had a light, fairer wind, which set us up again. And having a fine sea breeze on the first part of Monday we had the prospect of passing, without any trouble, Point Conception, the Cape Horn of California, where the sailor say it begins to blow the first of January, and blows until the last of December. First the latter part of the afternoon, however, the regular northwest wind, as usual, set in, which brought in our studying-souls, and gave us a chance of beating around the point, which we were now just abreast of, and which stretched off into the Pacific, high, rocky, and barren, forming the central point of the coast for hundreds of miles north and south. A cap full of wind will be a bag full here, and before night our royals were furled, and the ship was laboring hard under her top-flying sails. At eight bowels our watch went below, leaving her with as much sail as she could stagger under, the water flying over the foxtail at every plunge. It was evidently blowing harder, but then there was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had gone down bright. We had been below but a short time before we had the usual premonitions of a coming gale, seas washing over the whole forward part of the vessel, and her bowels beating against them with a force and sound like the driving of piles. The watch, too, seemed very busy trampling about decks and singing out at the ropes. A sailor can tell by the sound what sail is coming in, and in a short time we heard the top-gallant sails come in, one after another, and then the flying jib. This seemed to ease her a good deal, and we were fast going off to the land of Nod, when bang, bang, bang on the scuttle. And all hands, reef topsills ahoy! Started us out of our berths, and, it not being very cold weather, we had nothing extra to put on, and were soon on deck. I shall never forget the fineness of the sight. It was a clear and rather a chilly night, and the stars were twinkling with an intense brightness, and as far as I could reach there was not a cloud to be seen. The horizon met the sea in a defined line. A painter could not have painted so clear a sky. There was not a speck upon it, yet it was blowing great guns from the northwest. When you can see a cloud to windard, you feel that there is a place for the wind to come from. But here it seemed to come from nowhere. No person could have told from the heavens, by their eyesight alone, that it was not a still summer's night. One reef after another we took in the topsills, and before we could get them hoisted up we heard a sound like a short, quick rattling of thunder, and the jib was blown to atoms out of the bolt-rope. We got the topsills set, and the fragments of the jib stowed away, and the fortopma stassel set in its place. When the great mainsail gaped open and the cell ripped from head to foot. Lay up on that main yard and furl the sail before it blows to tatters, shouted the captain, and in a moment we were up, gathering the remains of it upon the yard. We got it wrapped round the yard, and passed gaskets over it as snugly as possible, and were just on deck again. When with another loud rent, which was heard throughout the ship, the fortopsel, which had been double reefed, split in two athwart ships, just below the reef band from earring to earring. There again it was, down yard, haul out reef tackles, and lay out upon the yard for reefing. By hauling the reef tackles, chock a block, we took the strain from the other earings, and passing the close reef earring, and knotting the points carefully, we succeeded in setting the sail close reefed. We had but just got the rigging coiled up, and were waiting to hear go below the watch. When the main royal worked loose from the gaskets, and blew directly out to Lourdes, flapping and shaking the mast like a wind. Here was a job for somebody. The royal must come in, or be cut adrift, or the mast would be snapped short off. All the light hands in the starboard watch were sent up one after another, but they could do nothing with it. At length, John, the tall Frenchman, the head of the starboard watch, and a better sailor never stepped upon a deck, sprang aloft, and, by the help of his long arms and legs, succeeded after a hard struggle. The sail blowing over the yard arm to Lourdes, and the sky sill adrift directly over his head, in smothering it and frapping it with long pieces of synnet. He came very near being blown or shaken from the yard several times. But he was a true sailor, every finger a fishook. When he made the sail snug, he prepared to send the yard down, which was a long and difficult job, for frequently he was obliged to stop and hold on with all his might for several minutes. This ship pitching so as to make it impossible to do anything else at that height. The yard at length came down safe, and after it the four and miz and royal yards were sent down. All hands were then sent aloft, and for an hour or two we were hard at work making the booms well fast, unraving the studying soil and royal and sky sill gear, getting rolling robes on the yard, setting up the weather, breast backstays, and making other preparations for a storm. It was a fine night for a gale, just cool embracing enough for quick work without being cold and as bright as day. It was sport to have a gale in such weather as this, yet it blew like a hurricane. The wind seemed to come with a spite. An edge to it, which threatened to scrape us off the yards. The force of the wind was greater than I had ever felt it before, but darkness, cold and wet, are the worst parts of a storm to a sailor. Having got on deck again we looked round to see what time of night it was and who's watch. In a few minutes the man on the wheel struck four bells, and we found that the other watch was out, in our own half-out. Accordingly the starboard watch went below, and left the ship to us for a couple of hours, yet with orders to stand by for a call. Hardly had they got below, before away went the fortopma stacyl, blown to ribbons. This was a small cell, which we could manage in the watch, so that we were not obliged to call up the other watch. We laid out upon the bowsprit, where we were under water half the time, and took in the fragments of the sail, and, as she must have some head-sail on her, prepared to bend another stacyl. We got the new one out into the nettings, seized on the tack, sheets and halyards, and the hanks, manned the halyards, cut adrift the frapping lines, and hoisted away. Before it was half way up the stay, it was blown all to pieces. When we belayed the halyards, there was nothing left but the bolt-rope. Now large eyes began to show themselves in the fore-sail, and knowing that it must soon go, the mate ordered us upon the yard to furl it. Being unwilling to call up the watch, who had been on deck all night, he roused out the carpenter, sail-maker, cook, and steward, and with their help we manned the four-yard, and after nearly half an hour's struggle, mastered the sail, and got it well furled round the yard. The force of the wind had never been greater than at this moment, and going up the rigging it seemed absolutely to pin us down to the shrouds, and on the yard there was no such thing as turning a face to windard. It here was no driving sleet, in darkness and wet and cold, as off Cape Horn, and instead of stiff oil-clothed suits, south-western camps, and thick boots, we had on hats, round jackets, duck trousers, light shoes, and everything light and easy. These things make a great difference to a sailor. When we got on deck, the men at the wheel struck eight bells, four o'clock in the morning, and, all star-bow-lines ahoy, brought the other watch up, but there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, blowing like scissors and thumb-screws. The captain was on deck, the ship, which was light, as though she would shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mason topsoil, which was a comparatively new cell, and close-reefed, split from head to foot in the bunt, the fore topsoil went in one rent from clue to earring, and was blowing to tatters. One of the chain bobstays parted, the spritzel-yard sprung in the slings. The martingale had slewed away off to Leward, and owing to the long dry weather, the lee-rigging hung in large bites at every lurch. One of the main top-gallant shrouds had parted. To crown it all, the galley had gotten adrift, and had gone over to Leward, and the anchor on the lee-bow had worked loose, and was thumping the side. Here was work enough for all hands for half a day. Our gang laid out on the mason topsoil-yard, and after more than half an hour's hard work furled the cell, though it bellied out over our heads, and again, by a slat of the wind, blew it under the yard with a fearful jerk, and almost threw us off from the foot-ropes. Double gaskets were passed round the yards, rolling tackles and other gear bowels taught, and everything made as secure as it could be. Coming down we found the rest of the crew just coming down the fore-rigging, having furled the tattered topsoil, or rather swathed it round the yard, which looked like a broken limb bandaged. There was no sail now upon the ship, but the spanker and the closed-reef main topsoil, which still held good. But this was too much after sail, and order was given to furl the spanker. The brails were hauled up, and all the light-hands in the starboard watch sent out on the gaff to pass the gaskets. But they could do nothing with it. The second mate swore at them for a parcel of sojourn, and sent up a couple of the best men, but they could do no better, and the gaff was lowered down. All hands were now employed in setting up the lee-rigging, fishing the spritzel-yard, lashing the galley, and getting tackles upon the martingale, to bouse it to windard. Being in the larbored watch, my duty was forward to assist in setting up the martingale. Three of us were out on the martingale-guys and back-robes for more than half an hour, carrying out, hooking and unhooking the tackles, several times buried in the seas until the mate ordered us in, from fear of our being washed off. The anchors were then to be taken up on the rail, which kept all hands in the folk-soul for an hour, though every now and then the seas broke over it, washing the rigging off to lured, filling the lee-scuppers breast-high, and washing chock-aft to the tafferel. Having got everything secure again, we were promising ourselves some breakfast, for it was now nearly nine o'clock in the forenoon, when the main top-soul showed evident signs of giving way. Some sail must be kept on the ship, and the captain ordered the four and main spencer-gast to be lowered down, the two spencers, which were storm-sales, brand new, small, and made of the strongest canvas, to be got up and bent, leaving the main top-soul to blow away, with the blessing on it, if it would only last until we could set the spencers. These we bent on very carefully, with strong robants and ceasings, and making tackles fast to the clues, bows them down to the waterways. By this time the main top-soul was among the things that have been, and we went to loft to stow away the remnant of the last sail of all those which were on the ship twenty-four hours before. The spencers were now the only hull-sales on the ship, and, being strong and small, and near the deck, presenting but little surface to the wind above the rail, promised to hold out well, hove, too, under these, and eased by having no sails above the tops, the ship rose and fell, and drifted off to Lourdes like a line of battleship. It was now eleven o'clock, and the watch was sent below to get breakfast, and eight bells, noon, as everything was snug, although the gale had not in the least abated, the watch was set, and the other watch and idlers sent below. For three days and three nights the gale continued with unabated fury, and with singular regularity. There were no walls, and very little variation in its fierceness. Our ship, being light, rolled so as almost to send the four-yard-arm underwater, and drifted off bodily to Lourdes. All this time there was not a cloud to be seen in the sky, day or night, no not so large as a man's hand. Every morning the sun rose cloudless from the sea, and set again at night in the sea, in a flood of light. The stars, too, came out of the blue, one after another, night after night, unobscured, and twinkled as clear as on a still frosty night at home, until the day came upon them. All this time the sea was rolling in immense surges, white with foam, as far as the eye could reach on every side, and we were now leagues and leagues from shore. The between decks being empty, several of us slept there in the hammocks, which are the best things in the world to sleep in during a storm, it not being true of them, as it is of another kind of bed, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, for it is the ship that rocks, while they hang vertically from the beams. During these seventy-two hours we had nothing to do but to turn in and out, four hours on deck and four below, eat, sleep, and keep watch. The watches were only varied by taking the helm in turn, and now and then by one of the cells, which were furled, blowing out of the gaskets, and getting adrift, which sent us upon the yards, and by getting tackles on different parts of the rigging which were slack. Once the wheel-rope parted, which might have been fatal to us, had not the chief mate sprung instantly with a relieving tackle to windard, and kept the tiller up, till a new rope could be rove. On the morning of the twentieth at daybreak the gale had evidently done its worse, and had somewhat abated, so much so that all hands were called to bend new sails, although it was still blowing as hard as two common gales. One at a time, and with great difficulty in labor, the old cells were unbent, and sent down by the mutlins, and three new top-soles, made for the homeward passage round Cape Horn, which had never been bent, were gut up from the sail-room, and under the care of the cell-maker, were fitted for bending, and sent up by the halyards into the tops, and, with stops and frapping-lines, were bent to the yards, close-reefed, cheated home, and wasted. These were bent one at a time, and with the greatest care and difficulty. Two spare courses were then gut up and bent in the same manner and furled, and a storm-jib, with the bonnet off, bent and furled to the boom. It was twelve o'clock before we got through, and five hours of more exhausting labor I never experienced, and no one of the ships crew I will venture to say will ever desire again to unbend and bend five large sails in the teeth of her tremendous northwester. Towards night a few clouds appeared on the horizon, and as the gale moderated, the usual appearance of driving clouds relieved the face of the sky. The fifth day after the commencement of the storm, we shook a reef out of each top-sole and set the reefed fore-sill, jib, and spanker, but it was not until eight days of reefed top-soles that we had a whole sail on the ship, and that it was quite soon enough, for the captain was anxious to make up for leeway, the gale having blown us half the distance to the Sandwich Islands. Inch by inch, as fast as the gale would permit, we made sail on the ship. For the winds still continued ahead, and we had many days selling to get back to the longitude we were in when the storm took us. For eight days more we beat to winded under a stiff top-gallant breeze, when the wind shifted and became variable. A light south-easter, to which we could carry a reefed top-must setting-sole, did wonders for our dead reckoning. Friday December 4th, after a passage of twenty days, we arrived at the mouth of the Bay of San Francisco. End of Chapter 25 Part 2, Chapter 26, of Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana Jr. Chapter 26, San Francisco Our place of destination had been Monterey, but as we were to the northward of it when the wind hauled ahead, we made a fair wind for San Francisco. This large bay, which lies in latitude thirty-seven degrees, fifty-eight minutes, was discovered by Sir Francis Drake, and by him represented to be, as indeed it is, a magnificent bay, containing several good harbors, great depth of water, and surrounded by a fertile and finely wooded country. About thirty miles from the mouth of the bay, and on the southeast side, is a high point, upon which the Presidio is built. Behind this point is the little harbour, or bite, called Irba Buena, in which trading vessels anchor, and, near it, the mission of Dolores. There is no other habitation on this side of the bay, except a shanty of rough boards put up by a man named Richardson, who was doing a little trading between the vessels and Indians. Note, the next year Richardson built the one-story adobe house on the same spot, which was long afterwards known as the oldest house in the great city of San Francisco. And note, here at anchor, and the only vessel was a brig under Russian colours, from Sitka in Russian America, which had come down to winter, and to take in a supply of tallow and grain, great quantities of which latter article are raised in the missions at the head of the bay. The second day after our arrival we went on board the brig, it being Sunday, as a matter of curiosity, and there was enough there to gratify it. Though none larger than the pilgrim, she had five or six officers, and a crew of between twenty and thirty, and such a stupid and greasy looking set I never saw before. Although it was quite comfortable weather, and we had nothing on but straw hats, shirts, and duck trousers, and were barefooted, they had every man of them, double sold boots coming up to the knees, and well greased, thick woolen trousers, frocks, waistcoats, P-jackets, woolen caps, and everything in true Nova Zembla rig. And in the warmest days they made no change. The clothing of one of these men would weigh nearly as much as that of half our crew. They had brutish faces, looked like the antipodes of sailors, and apparently dealt in nothing but grease. They lived upon grease, ate it, drank it, slept in the midst of it, and their clothes were covered with it. To a Russian grease is the greatest luxury. They looked with greedy eyes upon the tallow bags as they were taken into the vessel, and no doubt would have eaten one up whole, had not the officer kept watch over it. The grease appeared to fill their pores and to come out in their hair and on their faces. It seemed as if it were this saturation which makes them stand cold and rain so well. If they were to go into a warm climate they would melt and die of scraping. The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the oldest and most inconvenient fashion possible, running trusses and lifts on the yards, and large hauser cables coiled all over the deck, and served and parceled in all directions. The top-gallant mast and studying cell booms were nearly black for want of scraping, and the decks would have turned the stomach of a man of war's man. The galley was down in the folk-sill, and there the crew lived in the midst of the steam and grease of the cooking, in a place as hot as an oven, and apparently never cleaned out. Five minutes in the folk-sill was enough for us, and we were glad to get into the open air. We made some trade with them by an Indian curiosities of which they had a great number, such as beadwork, feathers of birds, firmocasins, etc. I purchased a large robe, made of the skins of some animal, dried and sewed nicely together, and covered all over on the outside with thick, downy feathers, taken from the breasts of various birds, and arranged with their different colors so as to make a brilliant show. A few days after our arrival the rainy season set in, and for three weeks it rained almost every hour without cessation. This was bad for our trade, for the collecting of hides is managed differently in this port, from what it is in any other on the coast. The mission of Dolores, near the Anchorage, has no trade at all, but those of San Jose, Santa Clara, and others situated on the large creek's rivers which run into the bay, and distant between fifteen and forty miles from the Anchorage do a greater business in hides than any in California. Large boats, or launches, manned by Indians, incapable of carrying from five to six hundred hides apiece, are attached to the mission, and sent down to the vessels with hides, to bring away goods in return. Some of the crews of the vessels are obliged to go and come in the boats, to look out for the hides and the goods. These are favorite expeditions with the sailors in fine weather, but now, to be gone three or four days in open boats, in constant rain, without any shelter, and with cold food, was hard service. Two of our men went to Santa Clara in one of these boats, and were gone three days, during all which time hid constant rain, and did not sleep a wink, but passed three long nights walking for and after the boat in the open air. When they got on board, they were completely exhausted, and took a watch below of twelve hours. All the hides too that came down in the boats were soaked with water, and unfit to put below, so that we were obliged to trice them up to dry, in the intervals of sunshine or wind, upon all parts of the vessel. We got up tricing lines from the jib-boom end to each arm of the four-yard, and thence to the main and craw-jack-yard arms. Between the tops, too, and the mast-heads, from the four to the main swifters, and thence to the mizzen rigging, and in all directions the thwart-chips, tricing lines were run, and strung with hides. The head-stays and guise, and the spritzel-yard were lined, and having still more, we got out the swinging-booms, and strung them, and the forward and after guise with hides. The rail, fore and aft, the windlass, capstan, the sides of the ship, and every vacant place on deck were covered with wet hides on the least sign of an interval for drying. Our ship was nothing but a mass of hides, from the catapults to the water's edge, and from the jib-boom end to the tafferel. One cold rainy evening about eight o'clock, I received orders to get ready to start for San Jose at four the next morning in one of these Indian boats, with four days' provisions. I got my oil-cloth clothes, saw-wester, and thick boots ready, and turned into my hammock early, determined to get some sleep in advance, as the boat was to be alongside before daybreak. I slept on till all hands were called in the morning, for, fortunately for me, the Indians, intentionally or from mistaking their orders, had gone off alone in the night, and were far out of sight. Thus I escaped three or four days of very uncomfortable service. Four of our men a few days afterwards went up in one of the quarterboats to Santa Clara to carry the agent, and remained out all night in a drenching rain in the small boat in which there was not room for them to turn around. The agent having gone up to the mission and left the men to their fate, making no provision for their accommodation, and not even sending them anything to eat. After this they had to pull thirty miles, and when they got on board were so stiff that they could not come up the gangway ladder. This filled up the measure of the agent's unpopularity, and never after this could he get anything done for him by the crew, and many in delay and vexation, and many a good ducking in the surf, did he get to pay old scores, or square the yards with a bloody quill driver. Having collected nearly all the hides that were to be procured, we began our preparations for taking in a supply of wood and water, for both of which San Francisco is the best place on the coast. A small island about two leagues from the Anchorage, called by us Wood Island, and by the Mexicans, Isla de los Ángeles, was covered with trees to the water's edge, and to this two of our crew, who were Kennebec men, and could handle an axe like a plaything, were sent every morning to cut wood with two boys to pile it up for them. In about a week they had cut enough to last us a year, and the third mate with myself and three others were sent over in a large, schooner-regged open launch, which we had hired of the mission, to take in the wood and bring it to the ship. We left the ship about noon, but owing to a strong headwind, and a tide, which here runs four or five knots, did not get into the harbor, formed by two points of the island where they both fly until sundown. No sooner had we come to than a strong south-easter, which had been threatening us all day set in, with heavy rain and a chilly air. We were in rather a bad situation, an open boat, heavy rain, and long night. For in winter, in this latitude, it was dark nearly fifteen hours. Taking a small skiff, which we had brought with us, we went to shore, but discovered no shelter, for everything was open to the rain, and collecting a little wood, which we found by lifting up the leaves and brush, and a few muscles, we put aboard again, and made the best preparations in our power for passing the night. We unbent the mainsail and formed an awning with it, over the afterpart of the boat, made a bed of wet logs of wood, and, with our jackets on, lay down, about six o'clock to sleep. Taking the rain running down upon us and our jackets getting wet through, and the rough, knotty logs rather in different couches, we turned out, and taking an iron pan, which we brought with us. We wiped it out dry, put some stones around it, cut the wet bark from some sticks, and striking a light made a small fire in the pan. Keeping some sticks near to dry and covering the hole over with a roof of boards, we kept up a small fire, by which we cooked our muscles and ate them, rather for an occupation than for hunger. Still it was not ten o'clock, and the night was long before us, when one of the party produced an old pack of Spanish cards from his monkey-jacket pocket, which we held as a great windfall. And keeping a dim, flickering light by our faggots, we played game after game, till one or two o'clock, when, becoming really tired, we went to our logs again, one sitting up at a time in turn to keep watch over the fire. Towards morning the rain ceased, and the air became sensibly colder so that we found sleep impossible, and sat up watching for daybreak. No cereal was at light, then we went to shore, and began our preparations for loading our vessel. We were not mistaken in the coldness of the weather, for a white frost was on the ground, a thing we had never seen before in California. And one or two little puddles of fresh water were skimmed over with a thin coat of ice. In this state of the weather, and before sunrise in the gray of the morning, we had to wade off, nearly up to our hips and water, to load the skiff with the wood by armfuls. The third mate re-rained on board the launch, two more men stayed in the skiff to load and manage it, and all the water work, as usual, fell upon the two youngest of us, and there we were, with frost upon the ground, wading forward and back, from the beach to the boat. With armfuls of wood barefooted, and our trousers rolled up. When this skiff went off with her load, we could only keep our feet from freezing by racing up and down the beach on the hard sand as fast as we could go. We were all day at this work, and toward sundown, having loaded the vessel as deep as she would bear, we hove up our anchor and made sail, beating out of the bay. No sooner had we got into the large bay than we found a strong tide setting us out to seaward, a thick fog which prevented our seeing the ship, and a breeze too light to set us against the tide, for we were as deep as a sand barge. By the utmost exertions we saved ourselves from being carried out, and were glad to reach the lowermost point to sea of the island, where we came to, and prepared to pass another night more uncomfortable than the first, for we were loaded up to the gunnel and had only a choice among logs and sticks for a resting place. The next morning we made sail at slack water with a fair wind, and got on board by eleven o'clock, when all hands were turned to to unload and stow away the wood, which took till night. Having now taken in all our wood, the next morning a water party was ordered off with the casks, from this we escaped, having had a pretty good siege with the wooding. The water party were gone three days, during which time they narrowly escaped being carried out to sea, and passed one day on an island, where one of them shot a deer, great numbers of which overwent the islands and hills of San Francisco Bay. While not off on these wood and water parties or up the rivers to the missions, we had easy times on board the ship. We were moored stem and stern, within a cable's length of the shore, safe from southeasters, and with little boating to do, it rained nearly all the time, awnings were put over the hatchways, and all hands sent down between decks, where we were at work day after day picking oakum, until we got enough to caulk the ship all over and to last the whole voyage. Then we made a whole suit of gaskets for the voyage home, a pair of wheel ropes from strips of green hide, great quantities of spun yarn, and everything else that could be made between decks. It'd been now midwinter and in high latitude the nights were very long, so that we were not turned to until seven in the morning, and were obliged to knock off at five in the evening, when we got supper, which gave us nearly three hours before eight bells, at which time the watch was set. As we had now been about a year on the coast, it was time to think of the voyage home, and knowing that the last two or three months of our stay would be very busy ones, and that we should never have so good an opportunity to work for ourselves as the present. We all employed our evenings in making clothes for the passage home, and more especially for Cape Horn. As soon as supper was over and the kids cleared away, and each man had taken up his smoke, we seated ourselves on our chests around the lamp, which swung from a beam, and went to work, each in his own way, some making hats, others trousers, others jackets, et cetera, et cetera. And no one was idle. The boys who could not sew well enough to make their own clothes laid up grass into the Senate for the men, who sewed for them in return. Several of us clubbed together, and bought a large piece of twilled cotton, which we made into trousers and jackets, and giving them several coats of linseed oil, laid them by for Cape Horn. I also sewed and covered a tarpaulin hat, thick and strong enough to sit upon, and made myself a complete suit of flannel underclothing for bad weather. Those who had no southwestern caps made them, and several of the crew got up for themselves tarpaulin jackets and trousers, lined on the inside with flannel. Industry was the order of the day, and everyone did something for himself, for we knew that as the season advanced, and we went farther south, we should have no evenings to work in. Friday, December 25th. This day was Christmas, and as it rained all day long, and there were no hides to take in, and nothing special to do, the captain gave us a holiday. The first we had had, except Sundays since leaving Boston, and plumbed up for dinner. The Russian Brig, following the old style, had celebrated their Christmas eleven days before, when they had a grand blowout. And, as our men said, drank, in the folksal, a barrel of gin, ate up a bag of tallow, and made a soup of the skin. Sunday, December 27th. We had now finished all our business at this port, and being Sunday, we unmoor ship and got under way, firing a salute to the Russian Brig, and another to the Presidio, which were both answered. The common dawn of the Presidio, Don Guadalupe Vojo, a young man, and the most popular among the Americans in English, of any man in California, was on board when we got under way. He spoke English very well, and was suspected of being favorably inclined to foreigners. We sailed down this magnificent bay with a light wind, and tide, which was running out, carrying us at the rate of four or five knots. It was a fine day, the first of entire sunshine we had had for more than a month. We passed directly under the high cliff on which the Presidio was built, and stood into the middle of the bay, from whence we could see small bays making up into the interior, large and beautifully wooded islands, and the mouths of several small rivers. If California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the center of its prosperity. The abundance of wood and water, the extreme fertility of its shores, the excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as any in the world, and its facilities for navigation, affording the best anchoring grounds in the whole western coast of America, all fit it for a place of great importance. The tide leaving us became to anchor near the mouth of the bay under a high and beautifully sloping hill, upon which herds of hundreds and hundreds of red deer, and the stag with his high-branching antlers, were bounding about, looking at us for a moment, and then starting off, affrighted at the noises which we made for the purpose of seeing the variety of their beautiful attitudes and motions. At midnight, the tide having turned, we hove up our anchor and stood out of the bay with a fine starry heaven above us, the first we had seen for many weeks. Before the light northerly winds, which blow here with the regularity of trades, we worked slowly along and made point unannoyable the northerly point of the Bay of Monterey on Monday afternoon. We spoke, going in, the brigdiana of the Sandwich Islands, from the northwest coast, last from Sitka. She was off the point at the same time with us, but did not get into the anchoring ground until an hour or two after us. It was ten o'clock on Tuesday morning when we came to anchor. Monterey looked just as it did when I saw it last, which was eleven months before, in the brigd pilgrim. The pretty lawn on which it stands, as green as sun and rain could make it, the pine wood on the south, and small river on the north side, the adobe houses with their white walls and red-tiled roofs, dotted about on the green, the low white presidia with its soiled tricolored flag flying, and the discordant din of drums and trumpets in the noon parade, all brought up the sing we had witnessed here with so much pleasure nearly a year before, when coming from a long voyage, and from our unprepossessing reception at Santa Barbara, it seemed almost like coming to a home. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 of Andango The only other vessel on the port was a Russian government bark from Sitka, mounting eight guns, four of which we found to be Quakers, and having on board the ex-governor who was going in here to Mazatlan and then overland to Vera Cruz. He offered to take letters and deliver them to the American consul at Vera Cruz, once they could be easily forwarded to the United States. We accordingly made up a packet of letters, almost everyone writing and dating them January 1, 1836. The governor was true to his promise and they all reached Boston before the middle of March, the shortest communication ever yet made across the country. The break pilgrim had been lying in Monterey through the latter part of November, according to orders waiting for us. Day after day Captain Falcon went up to the hill to look out for us, and at last gave up, thinking we must have gone down in the gale which we experienced off-point conception, and which had blown with great fury over the whole coast, driving initial vessels in the snuggest ports. An English brig, which had put into San Francisco, lost both her anchors. The Rosa was driven upon a mud bank in San Diego, and the pilgrim, with great difficulty, rode out the gale in Monterey, with three anchors ahead. She sailed early in December for San Diego and Intermedios. As we were to be here over Sunday, and Monterey was the best place to go ashore on the whole coast, and we had had no liberty day for nearly three months. Everyone was foregoing ashore. On Sunday morning, as soon as the decks were washed, and we were through breakfast, those who had obtained liberty began to clean themselves, as it is called, to go ashore. Buckets of fresh water, cakes of soap, large coarse towels, and who went to work scrubbing one another on the folk-soul. Having gone through this, the next thing was to step into the head, one on each side with a bucket of peace, and duck one another, by drawing out water and heaving over each other while we were stripped to a pair of trousers. Then came the rigging up, the usual outfit of pumps, white stockings, loose white duck trousers, blue jackets, clean checked shirts, black kerchiefs, hats well varnished, with a fathom of black ribbon over the left eye, a silk hankerchief flying from the outside jacket pocket, and four or five dollars tied up in the back of a hankerchief, and we were all right. One of the quarterboats pulled us ashore, and we steamed up to the town. I tried to find the church in order to see the worship, but was told that there was no service except a mass early in the morning. So we went about the town, visiting the Americans in English and the Mexicans whom we had known when we were here before. Towards noon we procured horses and rode out to the Carmel Mission, which is about a league from the town, where we got something in the way of a dinner—beef, eggs, frijoles, tortillas, and some middling wine, from the major Doma, who, of course, refused to make any charge as it was the Lord's gift, yet received our present as a gratuity with a low bow, a touch of the hat, and deos se lo bug. After this repast we had a fine run, scouring the country on our fleet horses, and came into town soon after sundown. Here we found our companions, who had refused to go to ride with us, thinking that a sailor has no more business of a horse than a fish has with a balloon. They were moored, stem and stern, in the grog shop, making a great noise, with a crowd of Indians and hungry half-brades about them, and with a fair prospect of being stripped and dirked, or left to pass the night in the cabaluzzo. With a great deal of trouble we managed to get them down to the boats, though not without many angry looks and interferences from the Mexicans, who had marked them out for their prey. The Diana's crew, a set of worthless outcasts who had been picked up at the islands from the refuse of well-ships, were all as drunk as beasts, and had a set to on the beach with their captain, who was in no better state than themselves. They swore they would not go aboard and went back to the town, where robbed and beaten and lodged in the cabaluzzo until the next day, when the captain brought them out. Our folksil, as usual after a liberty day, was a scene of tumult all night long from the drunken ones. They had just got to sleep towards morning when they were turned up with the rest, and kept at work all day in the water carrying hides, their heads aching so that they could hardly stand. This is Sailor's Pressure. Nothing worthy of remark happened while we were here, except a little boxing match on board our own ship, which gave us something to talk about. Our broad-backed, big-headed Cape Cod Boy, about sixteen years old, had been playing the bully for the whole voyage over a slender, delicate-looking boy from one of the Boston schools, and over whom he had much the advantage in strength, age, and experience in the ship's duty. For this was the first time the Boston boy had been on salt water. A latter, however, had picked up his crumbs and was learning his duty, and getting strength and confidence daily, and began to assert his rights against his oppressor. Still the other was his master, and by his superior strength always tackled with him and threw him down. One afternoon before we returned to, these boys got into a violent squubble on the between decks, when George, the Boston boy, said he would fight Nat if he could have fair play. The chief mate heard the noise, dove down the hatchway, hauled them both up on deck, and told them to shake hands and have no more trouble for the voyage, or else they should fight till one gave in for beaten. Finding neither willing to make an offer of reconciliation, he called all hands up, for the captain was ashore, and he could do as he chose aboard. Ranged the crew in the waist, marked a line on the deck, brought the two boys up to it, making them tow the mark, then made the bite of rope fast to a belaying pin, and stretched it across the deck, bringing it just above their waist. No striking below the rope. And there they stood, one on each side of it, face to face, and went at it like two game cocks. The Cape Cod boy, Nat, put in his double fisters, starting the blood, and bringing the black and blue spots all over the face and arms of the other, whom he expected to see give in every moment. But the more he was hurt the better he fought. Again and again he was knocked nearly down, but he came up again and faced the mark, as bold as a lion, again to take the heavy blows, which sounded as to make one's heart turn with pity for him. At length he came up to the mark, the last time, his shirt torn from his body, his face covered with blood and bruises, and his eyes flashing fire, and swore he would stand there until one or the other was killed, and set to it like a young fury. Her on the bow! said the men, cheering him on. Never say die when there's a shot in a locker! Nat tried to close with him, knowing his advantage, but the mates stopped that, saying there should be fair play, and no fingering. Nat then came up to the mark, but looked white about the mouth, and his blows were not given with half the spirit of his first. Something was the matter. I was not sure whether he was cowed or being good-natured, he did not care to beat the boy any more. At all events he faltered. He had always been master and had nothing to gain in everything to lose, while the other fought for honor and freedom, and under a sense of wrong. It was soon over, Nat gave in, apparently not much hurt, and never afterwards tried to act the bully over the boy. We took George Ford, washed him in the deck-tub, complimented his pluck, and from this time he became somebody on board, and he fought himself into notice. Mr. Brown's plan had a good effect, for there is no more quarreling among the boys for the rest of the voyage. Wednesday, January 6th, 1836. Set sail from Monterey with a number of Mexicans as passengers, and shaped our course for Santa Barbara. The Diana went out of the bay and company with us, but parted from us off Point Pinos, being bound to the Sandwich Islands. We had a smacking breeze for several hours, and went along at a great rate until night, when it died away, as usual, and a land breeze set in, which brought us upon a top bowline. Among our passengers was a young man who was a good representation of a decayed gentleman. He reminded me much of some of the characters in Gil Blas. He was of the aristocracy of the country, his family being of pure Spanish blood, and wants of considerable importance in Mexico. His father had been governor of the province, and having amassed a large property, settled in San Diego, where he built a large house with a courtyard in front, kept a retina of Indians, and set up for the grandee in that part of the country. His son was sent to Mexico, where he received an education, and went into the first society of the capital. Misfortune, extravagance, and the want of any manner of getting interest on money, soon ate the estate up, and Don Juan Bandini returned from Mexico accomplished, poor, and proud, and without any officer occupation to lead the life of most young men of the better families. Disappointed and extravagant, when the mains are at hand, ambitious at heart, and impotent in act, often pinched for bread, keeping up an appearance of style when their property is known to each half-naked Indian boy in the street, and standing in dread of every small trader and shopkeeper in the place. He had a slight and elegant figure, moved gracefully, danced and waltzed beautifully, spoke good Castilian with a pleasant and refined voice and accent, and had, throughout, the bearing of a man of birth and figure. But here he was, with his passage given him, as I afterwards learned, for he had not the means of paying for it, and living upon the charity of our agent. He was polite to everyone, spoke to the sailors, and gave four of the elves, I daresay the last he had in his pocket, to the steward who waited upon him. I could not but feel pity for him, especially when I saw him by the sight of his fellow passengers and townsmen. A fat, coarse, vulgar, pretentious fellow of a Yankee trader who had made his money in San Diego and was eating out the vitals of the bandinis, fattening upon their extravagance, grinding them in their poverty, having mortgages on their lands, forestalling their cattle, and already making an inroad upon their jewels, which were their last hope. Don Juan had with him a retainer who was as much like many of the characters in Gil Blas as his master. He called himself a private secretary, though there was no writing for him to do, and he lived in the steward with the carpenter and cellmaker. He was certainly a character, could read and write well, spoke good Spanish, had been over the greater part of Spanish America, and lived in every possible situation, and served in every conceivable capacity, though generally in that of confidential servant to some man of figure. I cultivated this man's acquaintance, and during the five weeks that he was with us, for he remained on board until we arrived at San Diego, I gained a greater knowledge of the state of political parties in Mexico and the habits and affairs of the different classes of society than I could have learned from almost anyone else. He took great pains in correcting my Spanish and supplying me with colloquial phrases and common terms and exclamations in speaking. He lent me a file of late newspapers from the city of Mexico, which were followed the triumphal reception of Santa Ana, who had just returned from Tampaco after a victory, and with the preparations for his expedition against the Texans, Vida Santa Ana was the byword everywhere, and it had even reached California, though there were still many here among whom was Don Juan Bandini, who were opposed to his government, and intriguing to bring in bustamente. Santa Ana, they said, was for breaking down the missions, or as they termed it, Santa Ana no Quire y Ligión, yet I had no doubt that the office of administrator of San Diego would reconcile Don Juan to any dynasty in any state of the church. I found scraps of American and English news, but which were so unconnected, and I was so ignorant of everything preceding them for eighteen months past, that they only awakened a curiosity which they could not satisfy. One article spoke of Tani as Justicia Mayor de los Etaros Unidos. What had become of Marshall, was he dead or banished? And another made known, by news received from Vera Cruz, that el Visconde Melbourne had returned to the office of Prime Ministero, in place of Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert Peel had been minister then, where were Earl Grey and the Duke of Wellington? Here were the outlines of grand political overturns, the filling up of which I was left to imagine at my leisure. The second morning after leaving Monterey, we were off point conception. It was a bright sunny day, and the wind, though strong, was fair, and everything was in striking contrast with our presence in the same place two months before, when we were drifting off from a north-wester under a fore and main spencer. Sal! Cried a man who was rigging out a top-gallant studying sill-boom. We're away! Weather beam, sir! And in a few minutes a full-rigged brig was seen standing out from under point conception. The studying sill-holyards were let go, under the yard boom-ended. The after-yards braced aback, and we waited her coming down. She rounded, too, backed her main top-soul, and showed her decks full of men, four guns on a side, hammock nettings and everything man-a-war fashion, except there was no bosson's whistle and no uniforms on the quarter-deck. A short, square-built man in a rough grey jacket with a speaking trumpet in hand stood in the weather hammock nettings. Ship-a-hoi! Hello! What ship is that, Prey? Alert! Where are you from, Prey? Et cetera, et cetera. She proved to be the great convoy from the Sandwich Islands engaged in otter hunting among the islands which lie along the coast. Her armament was because of her being a contra bandista. The otter are very numerous among these islands, and being of great value, the government require a heavy sum for a license to hunt them, and lay a high duty upon everyone shot or carried out of the country. This vessel had no license and paid no duty, besides being engaged in smuggling goods onboard other vessels training on the coast, and belonged to the same owners in Oahu. Our captain told him to look out for the Mexicans, but he said they had not an armed vessel of his size in the whole Pacific. This was without a doubt the same vessel that showed herself off Santa Barbara a few months before. These vessels frequently remain on the coast for years without making port, except in the islands for wood and water, and an occasional visit to Oahu for a new outfit. Sunday, January 10th, arrived at Santa Barbara, and on the following Wednesday slipped our cable and went to sea, on account of a southeaster. Then to our anchorage the next day. We were the only vessel on the port. The pilgrim had passed through the canal in Hove 2 off the town nearly six weeks before, on her passage down from Monterey, and was now at the Lourdes. She heard here of our safe arrival at San Francisco. Great preparations were making on shore for the marriage of our agent, who was to marry Tonya Anita de la Guerra de Noriega y Corrillo, youngest daughter of Don Antonio Noriega, the grandee of the place, and the head of the first family in California. Our steward was ashore three days, making pastry and cake, and some of the best of our stores were sent off with him. On the day appointed for the wedding, we took the captain ashore on the gig, and had orders to come for him at night, with leave to go up to the house and see the Fandango. Returning on board we found preparations for making a salute. Our guns were loaded and run out. Men appointed to each, cartridges served out, matches lighted, and all the flags ready to be run up. I took my place in the star burnt aftergun, and we all waited for the signal from on shore. At ten o'clock the bride went up with her sister to the confessional, dressed in deep black. Only an hour intervened. When the great doors of the mission church opened, the bells ring out a loud, discordant peal. The private signal for us was run up by the captain ashore. The bride, dressed in complete white, came out of the church with a bridegroom, followed by a long procession. Just as she stepped from the church door, a small white cloud issued from the bowels of our ship, which was full in sight, the loud report echoed among the surrounding hills and over the bay, and instantly the ship was dressed in flags and pennants from stem to stern. Twenty-three guns followed in regular succession, with an interval of fifteen seconds between each. When the cloud blew off, our ship lay dressed in her colors all day. At sundown another salute of the same number of guns was fired, and all the flags run down. This we thought was pretty well. A gun every fifteen seconds, for a merchant man with only four guns and a dozen or twenty men. After supper the gig's crew were called, and we rode ashore, dressed in our uniform, beached the boat, and went up to the Fandango. The bride's father's house was the principal one in the place, with a large court in front upon which a tent was built, capable of containing several hundred people. As we drew near, we heard the accustomed sound of violins and guitars, and saw a great motion of the people within. Going in we found nearly all the people of the town, men, women, and children, collected and crowded together, leaving barely room for the dancers. For on these occasions no invitations are given, but everyone is expected to come, though there is always a private entertainment within the house for particular friends. The old women sat down and rose, clapping their hands to the music, and applauding the young ones. The music was lively, and among the teens we recognized several of our popular errors, which we, without a doubt, have taken from the Spanish. In the dancing I was much disappointed. The women stood upright, with their hands down by their sides, their eyes fixed upon the ground before them, and slid about without any perceptible means of motion, for their feet were invisible, the hem of their dresses forming a circle about them, reaching to the ground. They looked as gray as though they were going through some religious ceremony, their faces as little excited as their limbs, and on the whole, instead of the spirited, fascinating Spanish dances which I had expected, I found the Californian Fandango on the part of the woman at least, a lifeless affair. The men did better. They danced with grace and spirit, moving in circles around their nearly stationary partners, and showing their figures to advantage. A great deal was said about our friend Don Juan Bandini, and when he did appear, which was towards the close of the evening, he certainly gave us the most graceful dancing that I had ever seen. He was dressed in white pantalons, neatly made, a short jacket of dark silk, gaily figured, white stockings, and thin Morocco slippers upon his very small feet. His slight and graceful figure was well adapted to dancing, and he moved about with the grace and daintiness of a young fawn. An occasional touch of the toe to the ground seemed all that was necessary to give him a long interval of motion in the air. At the same time he was not fantastic or flourishing, but appeared to be rather repressing a strong tendency to motion. He was loudly applauded and danced frequently towards the close of the evening. After the supper, the waltzing began, which was confined to a very few of the gentes de raison, and was considered a high accomplishment and a mark of aristocracy. Number two, Don Juan figured greatly, waltzing with the sister of the bride, Donia Angustia, a handsome woman and a general favorite. In a variety of beautiful figures, which lasted as much as half an hour, no one else taking the floor. They were repeatedly and loudly applauded, the old men and women jumping out of their seats in admiration, and the young people waving their hats and handkerchiefs. The great amusement of the evening, owing to its being the carnival, was the breaking of eggs filled with cologne or other essences upon the heads of the company. The women bring a great number of these secretly about them, and the amusement is to break one upon the head of a gentleman when his back is turned. He is bound in gallantry to find out the lady and return the compliment, though it must not be done if the person sees you. A tall, stately Don, with immense gray whiskers and a look of great importance, was standing before me when I felt a light hand on my shoulder, and turning round saw Donia Angustia, whom we all knew as she had been up to Monterey and down again in the alert, with her finger upon her lip motioning me gently aside. I stepped back a little when she went up behind the Don, and with one hand knocked off his huge sombrero, and at the same instant with the other broke the egg upon his head, and springing behind me was out of sight in a moment. The Don turned slowly round, the cologne running down his face and over his clothes, and a loud laugh breaking out from every quarter. He looked round in vain for some time until the direction of so many laughing eyes showed him the fair offender. She was his niece and a great favorite with him, so old Don Domingo had to join in the laugh. A great many such tricks were played, and many a war of sharp maneuvering was carried on between couples of the younger people, and at every successful exploit a general laugh was raised. Another of their games I was for some time at a loss about. A pretty young girl was dancing, named after what would appear to us an almost sacrilegious custom of the country, Espirito Santo. When a young man went behind her and placed his hat directly upon her head, letting it fall down over her eyes and spring back along the crowd. She danced for some time with the hat on when she threw it off, which called forth a general shout, and the young man was obliged to go out upon the floor and pick it up. Some of the ladies upon whose heads hats had been placed threw them off at once, and a few kept them on throughout the dance, and took them off at the end, and held them out in their hands when the owner stepped out, bowed, and took it from them. I soon began to suspect the meaning of the thing, and was afterwards told that it was a compliment, and an offer to become a lady's gallant for the rest of the evening and to wait upon her home. If the hat was thrown off, the offer was refused, and the gentleman was obliged to pick up his hat amid a general laugh. Much amusement was caused sometimes by gentlemen putting hats on the ladies' heads without permitting them to see who it was done by. This obliged them to throw them off or keep them on at a venture, and when they came to discover the owner, the laugh was turned upon one or the other. The captain sent for us about ten o'clock, and we went to board in high spirits, having enjoyed the new scene much, and were of great importance among the crew, from having so much to tell, and from the prospect of going every night until it was over, for these fandangos generally last three days. The next day two of us were sent up to the town, and took care to come back by way of Señor Noriegos, and take a look into the booth. The musicians were there again upon their platform, scraping and twinging away, and a few people, apparently of the lower classes, were dancing. The dancing is kept up at intervals throughout the day, but the crowd, the spirit, and the elite come in at night. The next night, which was the last, we went ashore in the same manner, until we got almost tired of the monotonous twang of the instruments, the drolling sounds which the women kept up as an accompaniment, and the slapping of the hands in time with the music, in place of castanets. We found ourselves as great objects of attention as any persons or anything in the place. Our sailor dresses, and we took great pains to have them neat and ship-shape, were much admired, and we were invited, from every quarter, to give them our American dance. But after the ridiculous figure some of our countrymen cut in dancing after the Mexicans, we thought it best to leave it to their imaginations. Our agent, with a tight black swallow-tailed coat just imported from Boston, a high stiff cravette, looking as if he had been pinned and skewered, with only his feet and hands left free, took the floor just after Bandini, and we thought they had enough of Yankee Grace. The last night they kept it up in great style, and were getting into a high go, when the captain called us off to go aboard. For it being southeastern season he was afraid to remain on shore long, and it was well that he did not. For that night we slipped our cables, as a crowner to our fun ashore, and soot off before a southeaster, which lasted twelve hours, and returned to our anchorage the next day. CHAPTER XXVIII After having been in port twenty-one days, we sailed for San Pedro, where we arrived on the following day. Everything gone, all fluking, with the weather-clu of the mainsail hauled up, the yards braced in a little, and the lower-studding-sail just drawing. The wind hardly shifting a point during the passage. Here we found the Ayacucho and the Pilgrim, which last we had not seen since the eleventh of September, nearly five months, and I really felt something like an affection for the old brig, which had been my first home, and in which I had spent nearly a year, and got the first rough-and-tumble of the sea life. She too was associated in my mind with Boston, the wharf from which we sailed, anchorage in the stream, leave-taking, and all such matters, which were now to mean like small links connecting me with another world, which I had once been in, and which, please God, I might yet see again. I went on board the first night after supper, found the old cook in the galley, playing on the fife which I had given him as a parting present, had a hearty shake of the hand from him, and dove down into the folksal, where were my old shipmates, the same as ever, glad to see me, for they had nearly given us up as lost, especially when they did not find us at Santa Barbara. They had been at San Diego last, and had been lined at San Pedro nearly a month, and had received three thousand hides from the Pueblo, but seek woes non-wobbies. These we took from her the next day, which filled us up, and both got under way on the fourth. She bound to San Francisco again, and we to San Diego, where we arrived on the sixth. We were always glad to see San Diego it being the depot, and a snug little place, and seeming quite like home, especially to me, who had spent a summer there. There was no vessel in port, the Rosa having sell for Valparaiso and Cadiz, and the Catalina for Caleo nearly a month before. We discharged our hides, and in four days were ready to sell again for the wintered, and to our great joy for the last time. Over thirty thousand hides had already been collected, cured, and sewed away in the house, which, together with what we should collect and the pilgrim would bring down from San Francisco, would make out our cargo. The thought that we were actually going up for the last time, and that the next time we went round San Diego Point it would be homeward bound, brought things so near or close that we felt as though we were just there, though it must still be the greater part of a year before we could see Boston. I spent one evening, as had been my custom, at the oven with the sandwich islanders, but it was far from being the usual noisy laughing time. It has been said that the greatest curse to each of the South Sea islands was the first man who discovered it, and everyone who knows anything of the history of our commerce in those parts knows how much truth there is in this, and that the white men, with their vices, have brought in diseases before unknown to the islanders, which are now sweeping off the native population of the sandwich islanders at the rate of one-fortieth of the entire population annually. They seem to be a doomed people. The curse of a people calling themselves Christians seems to follow them everywhere, and even here, in this obscure place, lay two young islanders, whom I had left strong, active young men, in the vigor of health, wasting away under a disease, which they would never have known but for their intercourse with people from Christian America and Europe. One of them was not so ill and was moving about, smoking his pipe, and talking, and trying to keep up his spirits. But the other, who was my friend in Akane, Hope, was the most dreadful object I had ever seen in my life. His eyes sunken and dead, his cheeks fallen in against his teeth, his hands looking like claws, a dreadful cough which seemed to rack his whole shattered system, a hollow, whispering voice, and an entire inability to move himself. There he lay upon a mat on the ground, which was the only floor of the oven, with no medicine, no comforts, and no one to care for or help him but a few konakas, who were willing enough but could do nothing. Poor fellow, during the four months that I lived upon the beach, we were continually together in work, and in our excursions in the woods and upon the water. I felt a strong affection for him, and preferred him to any of my own countrymen there, and I believe there was nothing which he would not have done for me. When I came into the oven, he looked at me, held out his hand, and said in a low voice, but with a delightful smile, Aloha Akane, Aloha Nui. I comforted him as well as I could, and promised to ask the captain to help him from the medicine chest, and told him I had no doubt the captain would do what he could for him, as he had worked in our employ for several years, both onshore and aboard our vessels on the coast. I went aboard and turned into my hammock, but I could not sleep. Being from my education that I must have some knowledge of medicine, the Kanakos had insisted upon my examining him carefully, and it was not a sight to be forgotten. One of our crew, an old man of war's man of twenty years standing, who had seen sin and suffering in every shape, and who went afterwards took to see hope, said it was dreadfully worse than anything he had ever seen or even dreamed of. He was horror-struck, as his countenance showed, yet he had been amongst the worst cases in our naval hospitals. I could not get the thought of the poor fellow out of my head all night, his dreadful suffering, and his apparently inevitable end. The next day I told Captain Thompson of Hope State, and asked him if he would be so kind as to go and see him. What a damned Kanaka! Yes, sir, said I, but he has worked four years for our vessels, and has been in the employ of our owners, both on shore and aboard. Oh, he be damned! said the captain, and walked off. This man died afterwards of a fever on the deadly coast of Sumatra, and God grant that he had better care taken of him in his sufferings than he ever gave to anyone else. Finding nothing was to be got from the captain, I consulted an old shipmate who had much experience in these matters, and got a recipe from him which he kept by him. With this I went to the mate and told him the case. Mr. Brown had been entrusted with the general care of the medicine-chest, and although a driving fellow, and a taut hand on the watch, he had good feelings and was inclined to be kind to the sick. He said that Hope was not strictly one of the crew, but as he was in our employ when taken sick he should have the medicines, and he got them and gave them to me, with leave to go ashore at night. Nothing could exceed the delight of the Kanakas when I came bringing the medicines. All their terms of affection and gratitude were spent upon me, and in a sense wasted, for I could not understand half of them. Yet they made all known by their manner. Poor Hope was so much revived at the bare thought of anything being done for him that he seemed already stronger and better. I knew he must die as he was, and he could but die under the medicines, and any chance was worth running. An oven exposed to every wind and change of weather is no place to take Calamel, but nothing else would do, and strong remedies must be used where he was gone. The applications, internal and external, were powerful, and I gave him strict directions to keep warm and sheltered, telling him it was his only chance for life. Twice after this I visited him, having only time to run up while waiting in the boat. He promised to take his medicines regularly while we were up the coast, until we returned, and insisted upon it that he was doing better. We got under way on the tenth, bound up to San Pedro, and had three days of calm and headwinds, making but little progress. On the fourth we took a stiff south-easter, which obliged us to reef our topsoils. While on the yard we saw a sail on the weather bow, and in about half an hour passed the Ayacucho, under double reef topsoils, beating down to San Diego, arrived at San Pedro on the fourth day, and came to in the old place, a league from shore, with no other vessel in port, and the prospect of three weeks or more of dull life, rolling goods up a slippery hill, carrying hides on our heads over sharp stones, and perhaps slipping for a south-easter. There was but one man in the only house here, and him I shall always remember, as a good specimen of a Californian ranger. He had been a tailor in Philadelphia, and getting in temperate and in debt, joined a trapping party, and went to the Columbia River, and thence down to Monterey, where he spent everything, left his party, and came to the Pueblo de Los Angeles to work at his trade. He went dead to Lourdes among the Puperios, gambling rooms, etc., and came down to San Pedro to be moral by being out of temptation. He had been in the house several weeks working hard at his trade upon orders which he had brought with him, and talked much of his resolution, and opened his heart to us about his past life. After we had been here some time, he started off one morning in fine spirits, well-dressed, to carry the clothes which he had been making to the Pueblo, and saying that he would bring back his money and some fresh orders the next day. The next day came, and a week passed, and nearly a fortnight, when one day, going ashore, we saw a tall man who looked like our friend the tailor, getting out with the back of an Indian's cart, which had just come down from the Pueblo. He stood for the house, but we bore up after him. When finding that we were overhauling him, he hoved to and spoke to us. Such a sight! Barefooted, with an old pair of trousers tied round his waist by a piece of green hide, a soiled cotton shirt and a torn Indian hat, cleaned out to the last ray all, and completely used up. He confessed the whole matter, acknowledged that he was on his back, and now he had a prospect of a fit of the horrors for a week, and of being worse than useless for months. This is a specimen of the life of half of the Americans at English who are adrift along the coast of the Pacific and its islands, commonly called beachcombers. One of the same stamp was Russell, who was mastered the hide-house at San Diego while I was there, but had been afterwards dismissed for his misconduct. He spent his own money in nearly all the stores, among the half-bloods upon the beach, and went up to the Presidio, where he lived the life of a desperate loafer, until some rascally deeds sent him off, between two days, with men on horseback, dogs and Indians in full cry after him along the hills. One night he burst into our room at the hide-house, breathless, pale as a ghost, covered with mud, and torn by thorns and briars, nearly naked, and begged for a crust of bread, saying he had neither eaten nor slept for three days. Here was the great Mr. Russell, who a month before was Don Tomas, Maestro de la Casa, et cetera, et cetera, begging food and shelter of canacas and sailors. He stayed with us till he had given himself up, and was dragged off to the Calabozo. Another and a more amusing specimen was one whom we saw at San Francisco. He had been allowed on board the ship California, in one of her first voyages, and ran away and commenced ranchero, gambling, stealing horses, et cetera. He worked along up to San Francisco, and was living on a rancho near there while we were in port. One morning, when we went ashore on the boat, we found him at the landing-place, dressed in California-style, a wide hat, faded velveteen trousers, and a blanket thrown over his shoulders, and wishing to go off in the boat, saying he was going to pasear with our captain a little. We had many doubts of the reception he would meet with, but he seemed to think himself company for anyone. We took him aboard, landed him on the gangway, and went about our work, keeping an eye upon the quarter-deck where the captain was walking. The lad went up to him with complete assurance, and raising his hat wished him good afternoon. Captain Thompson turned round, looked at him from head to foot, and saying coolly, Hello, who the hell are you? kept on his walk. This was a rebuff not to be mistaken, and the joke passed among the crew by winks and signs at different parts of the ship. Finding himself disappointed at headquarters, he edged along forward to the mate, who was overseeing some work upon the folksal, and tried to begin a yarn, but it would not do. The mate had seen the reception he had met with apt, and would have no cast-off company. The second mate was aloft, and the third mate and myself were painting the quarter-boat, which hung by the davits, so he betook himself to us. But we looked at each other, and the officer was too busy to say a word. From us he went to one and another of the crew, but the joke had got before him, and he found everybody busy and silent. Looking over the rail a few moments afterwards, we saw him at the galley door talking with the cook. This was indeed a come-down from the highest seat in the synagogue to a seat in the galley with a black cook. At night, too, when supper was called, he stood in the waste for some time, hoping to be assed down with the officers, but they went below one after another and left him. His next chance was with the carpenter and sail-maker, and he lounged round the after-hatchway until the last had gone down. We had now had fun enough out of him, and taking pity on him offered him a pot of tea and a cut of the kid with the rest in the folk-soul. He was hungry, and it was growing dark, and he began to see that there was no use in playing the caballero any longer, and came down into the folk-soul, put into the grub in sailor style, threw off all his heirs, and enjoyed the joke as much as anyone, for a man must take a joke among sailors. He gave us an account of his adventures in the country, roguery and all, and was very entertaining. He was a smart, unprincipled fellow, and in many of the rascally doings of the country, and gave us a great deal of interesting information as to the ways of the world we were in. Saturday, February 13th. We were called up at midnight to slip for a violent northeaster, for this miserable whole of San Pedro is thought unsafe in almost every wind. We went off with a flowing sheet, and hoved to under the lee of Catalina Island, where we lay three days, and then return to our anchorage. Tuesday, February 23rd. This afternoon a signal was made from the shore, and we went off in the gig, and found the agent's clerk, who had been up to the pueblo, waiting at the landing place with a package under his arm, covered with round paper, and tied carefully with twine. No sooner had we shoved off than he told us there was good news from Santa Barbara. What's that? said one of the crew. Has the bloody agent slipped off the hooks? Has the old bundle of bones got him at last? No, better than that, the California has arrived. Letters, papers, news, and perhaps friends on board. Our hearts were all up in our mouths, and we pulled away like good fellows, for the precious packet could not be opened except by the captain. As we pulled under the stern the clerk held up the package, and called out to the mate, who was leaning over the trafforal, that the California had arrived. Hurrah! said the mate, so as to be heard for an aft. California come, and news for Boston! Instantly there was a confusion on board, which no one would understand, who has not been in the same situation. All discipline seemed, for a moment, relaxed. What's that, Mr. Brown? said the cook, putting his head out of the galley. California come. I.I. you angel of darkness, and there's a letter for you from Bullknop Treet, number 225 Green Door and Brassknocker. The packet was sent down into the cabin, and everyone waited to hear the result. As nothing came up the officers began to feel that they were acting rather a child's part, and turned the crew to again, and the same strict discipline was restored, which prohibits speech between man and man while at work on deck. So that, when the steward came forward with letters for the crew, each man took his letters, carried them below to his chest, and came up again immediately, and not a letter was read until he had cleared up decks for the night. An over-strange sense of manliness is the characteristic of seafaring men. This often gives the appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and heaps, it is made a joke of, and no notice must be taken of a bruise or a cut, and any expression of pity, or any show of attention would look sisterly and unbecoming a man who has to face the rough and tumble of such a life. From this cause, too, the sick are neglected at sea, and whatever sailors may be ashore, a sick man finds little sympathy or tension for it or aft. A man, too, can have nothing peculiar or sacred on board ship. For all the nicer feelings they take pride in disregarding, both in themselves and others. A thinned, skinned man could hardly live on shipboard. One would be torn raw unless he had the hide of an ox. A moment of natural feeling for home and friends, and then the frigid routine of sea life returned. Jokes were made upon those who showed any interest in the expected news, and everything near and dear was made the common stock for rude jokes and unfilling coarseness to which no exception could be taken by any one. Supper, too, must be eaten before the letters are read, and when at last they were brought out they all got round any one who had a letter and expected to hear it read all out, and have it all in common. If any one went by himself to read, it was, Fair play there, no skulking! I took mine and went into the cellmaker's birth, where I could read it without interruption. It was dated August, just a year from the time I had celled from home, and every one was well, and no great change had taken place. Thus for one year my mind was set at ease, yet it was already six months from the date of this letter, and what another year would bring to pass who could tell. Every one away from home thinks that some great thing must have happened, while to those at home there seems to be a continued monotony and lack of incident. As much as my feelings were taken up by my own news from home I could not but be amused by a scene in the steerage. The carpenter had been married just before leaving Boston, and during the voyage had talked much about his wife and had to bear and forbear, as every man known to be married must aboard ship, yet the certainty of hearing from his wife by the first ship seemed to keep up his spirits. When the California came, the packet was brought on board, no one was in higher spirits than he, but when the letters came forward there was none for him. The captain looked again, but there was no mistake. Poor chips could eat no supper. He was completely down in the mouth. Sales, the sailmaker, tried to comfort him, and told him he was a bloody fool to give up his grub for any woman's daughter, and reminded him that he had told him a dozen times that he'd never see or hear from his wife again. Ah! said chips. You don't know what it is to have a wife, and don't I? said sales. And then came for the hundredth time the story of his coming to shore at New York from a constellation frigate, after a cruise of four years round the Horn, being paid off with over five hundred dollars, marrying and taking a couple of rooms in a four-story house, furnishing the rooms with a particular count of the furniture, including a dozen flag-bottom chairs which he always dilated upon whenever the subject of furniture was alluded to. Going off to sea again, leaving his wife half-pay like a fool, coming home and finding her off like Bob's horse with nobody to pay the reckoning. Furniture gone, flag-bottom chairs and all, and with it his long togs, the half-pay, his beaver-hat, and white linen shirts. His wife he never saw or heard of from that day to this and never wished to. Then followed a sweeping assertion not much to the credit of the sex, in which he has pope to back him. Come, chips, cheer up like a man and take some hot grub. Don't be made a fool of by anything in petticoats. As for your wife, you'll never see her again. She was up kelling off before you were outside of Cape Cod. You've hoeve your money away like a fool, but every man must learn once, just as I did, so you'd better square the yards with her and make the best of it. This was the best consolation sales had to offer, but it did not seem to be just the thing the carpenter wanted. For during several days he was very much dejected, and bore with difficulty the jokes of the sailors, and with still more difficulty their attempts at advice and consolation, of most of which the sailmakers was a good specimen. Thursday, February 25th, set sail for Santa Barbara, where we arrived on Sunday the 28th. We just missed seeing the California, for she had sailed three days before bound to Monterey to enter her cargo and procure her license, and then to San Francisco, etc. Captain Arthur left files of Boston paper for Captain Thompson, which after they had been read and talked over in the cabin, I procured for my friend the third mate. One file was of all the Boston transcripts for the month of August, 1835, and the rest were about a dozen daily advertisers and couriers of different dates. After all, there is nothing in a strange land like a newspaper from home. Even a letter in many respects is nothing in comparison with it. It carries you back to the spot better than anything else. It is almost equal to clairvoyance. The names of the streets, with things advertised, are almost as good as seeing the signs, and while reading, Boy Lost, one can almost hear the bell and well-known voice of Old Wilson, crying the boy as strayed, stolen, or mislaid. Then there was the commencement at Cambridge, and the full account of the exercises at the graduating of my own class, a list of all these familiar names, beginning as usual with Abbott and ending with W, which as I read them over, one by one, brought up their faces and characters as I had known them in the various scenes of college life. Then I imagined them upon the stage, speaking their orations, certations, colloquies, et cetera, with the familiar gestures and tones of each, and tried to fancy the manner of which each would handle his subject, blank, handsome, showy, and superficial, blank, with his strong head, clear brain, cool self-possession, blank, modest, sensitive, and underrated, blank, the mouthpiece of the debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic. And so following. Then I could see them receiving their A-Bs from the dignified, feudal-looking president, with his actuartate mijicumisa, and walking off the stage with their diplomas in their hands, while their classmate was walking up and down California Beach with a hide upon his head. Every watch below for a week, I poured over these papers until I was sure there could be nothing in them that had escaped my attention, and was ashamed to keep them any longer. Saturday, March 5th. This was an important day in our almanac, for it was on this day that we were first assured that our voyage was really drawing to a close. The captain gave orders to have the ship ready for getting underway, and observed that there was a good breeze to take us down to San Pedro. Then we were not going up to Winderd. Best match was certain, and was soon known for an aft. And when we went in the gig to take him off, he shook hands with the people on the beach, and said that he did not expect to see Santa Barbara again. This settled the matter, and sent a thrill of pleasure through the heart of everyone in the boat. We pulled off with a will, saying to ourselves, I can speak for myself at least. Goodbye Santa Barbara, this is the last pull here, no more duckings in your breakers and slipping from your cursed Southeasters. The news was soon known aboard, and put life into everything when we were getting underway. Each one was taking his last look at the mission, the town, the breakers on the beach, and swearing that no money would make him a ship to see them again. And when all hands tallied onto the catfall, the chorus of time for us to go was raised for the first time and joined in with full swing by everybody. One would have thought that we were on our voyage home, so near did it seem to us, though there were yet three months for us on the coast. We left here the young Englishman, George Marsh, of whom I have before spoken, who was racked upon the Pilu Islands. He left us to take the birth of second mate on board the Iacucho, which was lying in port. He was well qualified for this post, and his education would enable him to rise in any situation on board ship. I felt really sorry to part from him. There was something about him which excited my curiosity, for I could not for a moment doubt that he was well born and in early life well bred. There was the latent gentleman about him in the sense of honor, and no little of pride, of a young man of good family. The situations offered him only a few hours before we sailed, and though he must give up returning to America, yet I have no doubt that the change from the dog's birth to an officer's was too agreeable to his feelings to be declined. We pulled him on board the Iacucho, and when he left the boat he gave each of its crew a piece of money except myself, and shook hands with me, nodding his head, as much to say we understand each other, and spring on board. Had I known an hour sooner that he was to leave us, I would have made an effort to get from him the true history of his birth and early life. He knew that I had no faith in the story which he told the crew about them, and perhaps in the moment of parting from me, probably forever, he would have given me the true account. Whether I shall ever meet him again, or whether his manuscript narrative of his adventures in the Pilu Islands, which would be credible to him and interesting to the world, we'll ever see the light of day I cannot tell. His is one of those cases which are more numerous than those supposed, who have never lived anywhere but in their own homes, and never walked but in one line from their cradles to their graves. We must come down from our heights and leave our straight paths for the byways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts, and in hovels, in foxholes, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what had been wrought among our fellow creatures by accident, hardship, or vice. Two days brought us to San Pedro, and two more, to our no small joy, gave us our last view of that place, which was universally called the Hell of California, and seemed designed in every way for the wear and tear of sailors. Not even the last view could bring out one feeling of regret. No thanks, thou I, as we left the hated shores in the distance, for the hours I have walked over your stones barefooted with hides on my head, for the burdens I have carried up your steep muddy hill, for the duckings in your surf, and for the long days and longer nights passed on your desolate hill, watching piles of hides, hearing the sharp bark of your eternal coyotes, and the dismal hooting of your owls. As I bade goodbye to each successive place, I felt as though one link after another were struck from the chain of my servitude. Having kept close and sure for the land breezes, we passed the mission of San Juan Capistrano the same night, and saw distinctly, by the bright moonlight, the cliff which I had gone down by a pair of halyards in search of a few paltry hides. For sit on at hikeolim.ai and took my last look of that place too. And on the next morning, we were under the point of San Diego. The flood tide took us swiftly in, and we came to opposite our hidehouse, and prepared to get everything in trim for a long stay. This was our last port. Here we were to discharge everything from the ship, clean her out, smoke her, take in our hides, wood and water, and set sail for Boston. While all this was done, we were to lie still in one place, the port a safe one, and no fear of southeasters. Accordingly, having picked out a good berth in the stream, with a smooth beach opposite for a landing place, and within two cable lengths of our hidehouse, we moored a chip, unbent the sails, sent down the top gallant yards and the studying cell booms, and housed the top gallant masts. The boats were then hove out, and all the sails, the spare spars, the stores, the rigging knot robe, and in fact, everything which was not in daily use, sent to shore, and stowed away in the house. Then went our hides and horns, and we hardly left anything in the ship but her ballast, and this we made preparations to heave out the next day. At night, after we had knocked off, and we're sitting round in the folk-soul, smoking and talking and talking, sailor's pleasure, we congratulated ourselves upon being in that situation in which we had wished ourselves every time we had come into San Diego. If we were only here for the last time, we had often said, with our top gallant mast housed and our sails unbent, and now we had our wish. Six weeks or two months of the hardest work we had yet seen, but not the most disagreeable or trying, was before us, and then goodbye to California. End of Chapter 28.