He Came On The Coast In A Vessel
Which Was Afterwards Wrecked, And Now Let Himself Out To The
Different Houses To Cure Hides.
He was considerably over six
feet, and of a frame so large that he might have been shown
for a curiosity.
But the most remarkable thing about him was his
feet. They were so large that he could not find a pair of shoes
in California to fit him, and was obliged to send to Oahu for a
pair; and when he got them, he was compelled to wear them down at
the heel. He told me once, himself, that he was wrecked in an
American brig on the Goodwin Sands, and was sent up to London,
to the charge of the American consul, without clothing to his
back or shoes to his feet, and was obliged to go about London
streets in his stocking feet three or four days, in the month
of January, until the consul could have a pair of shoes made
for him. His strength was in proportion to his size, and his
ignorance to his strength - "strong as an ox, and ignorant as
strong." He neither knew how to read nor write. He had been
to sea from a boy, and had seen all kinds of service, and been
in every kind of vessel: merchantmen, men-of-war, privateers,
and slavers; and from what I could gather from his accounts of
himself, and from what he once told me, in confidence, after we
had become better acquainted, he had even been in worse business
than slave-trading. He was once tried for his life in Charleston,
South Carolina, and though acquitted, yet he was so frightened that
he never would show himself in the United States again; and I could
not persuade him that he could never be tried a second time for the
same offence. He said he had got safe off from the breakers, and was
too good a sailor to risk his timbers again.
Though I knew what his life had been, yet I never had the slightest
fear of him. We always got along very well together, and, though
so much stronger and larger than I, he showed a respect for
my education, and for what he had heard of my situation before
coming to sea. "I'll be good friends with you," he used to say,
"for by-and-by you'll come out here captain, and then you'll haze me
well!" By holding well together, we kept the officer in good order,
for he was evidently afraid of Nicholas, and never ordered us,
except when employed upon the hides. My other companions,
the Sandwich Islanders, deserve particular notice.
A considerable trade has been carried on for several years between
California and the Sandwich Islands, and most of the vessels are
manned with Islanders; who, as they, for the most part, sign no
articles, leave whenever they choose, and let themselves out to
cure hides at San Diego, and to supply the places of the men of the
American vessels while on the coast.
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