One Or Two Blows Struck Near Him, And A Few Stones
Thrown, Started Him, And We Lost His Track, And Had The Pleasant
Consciousness That He Might Be Directly Under Our Feet.
By throwing
stones and chips in different directions, we made him spring his
rattle again, and began another attack.
This time we drove him
into the clear ground, and saw him gliding off, with head and tail
erect, when a stone, well aimed, knocked him over the bank, down a
declivity of fifteen or twenty feet, and stretched him at his length.
Having made sure of him, by a few more stones, we went down, and one
of the Kanakas cut off his rattle. These rattles vary in number it
is said, according to the age of the snake; though the Indians think
they indicate the number of creatures they have killed. We always
preserved them as trophies, and at the end of the summer had quite
a number. None of our people were ever bitten by them, but one of
our dogs died of a bite, and another was supposed to have been bitten,
but recovered. We had no remedy for the bite, though it was said that
the Indians of the country had, and the Kanakas professed to have an
herb which would cure it, but it was fortunately never brought to the test.
Hares and rabbits, as I said before, were abundant, and, during the
winter months, the waters are covered with wild ducks and geese.
Crows, too, were very numerous, and frequently alighted in great
numbers upon our hides, picking at the pieces of dried meat and fat.
Bears and wolves are numerous in the upper parts, and in the interior,
(and, indeed, a man was killed by a bear within a few miles of
San Pedro, while we were there,) but there were none in our
immediate neighborhood. The only other animals were horses.
Over a dozen of these were owned by different people on the beach,
and were allowed to run loose among the hills, with a long lasso
attached to them, and pick up feed wherever they could find it.
We were sure of seeing them once a day, for there was no water
among the hills, and they were obliged to come down to the well
which had been dug upon the beach. These horses were bought at,
from two, to six and eight dollars apiece, and were held very much
as common property. We generally kept one fast to one of the houses
every day, so that we could mount him and catch any of the others.
Some of them were really fine animals, and gave us many good runs
up to the Presidio and over the country.
CHAPTER XX
LEISURE - NEWS FROM HOME - "BURNING THE WATER"
After we had been a few weeks on shore, and had begun to feel
broken into the regularity of our life, its monotony was
interrupted by the arrival of two vessels from the windward.
We were sitting at dinner in our little room, when we heard the cry
of "Sail ho!" This, we had learned, did not always signify a vessel,
but was raised whenever a woman was seen coming down from the town;
or a squaw, or an ox-cart, or anything unusual, hove in sight upon
the road; so we took no notice of it.
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