We Suspected Him Of Sending Them Up To The Town;
And He Always Treated The Squaws With Molasses, When They Came
Down To The Beach.
Finding wheat-coffee and dry bread rather
poor living, we dubbed together, and I went up to the town
On
horseback with a great salt-bag behind the saddle, and a few reáls
in my pocket, and brought back the bag full of onions, pears, beans,
water-melons, and other fruits; for the young woman who tended
the garden, finding that I belonged to the American ship, and that
we were short of provisions, put in a double portion. With these
we lived like fighting-cocks for a week or two, and had, besides,
what the sailors call "a blow-out on sleep;" not turning out in the
morning until breakfast was ready. I employed several days in
overhauling my chest, and mending up all my old clothes, until I
had got everything in order - patch upon patch, like a sand-barge's
mainsail. Then I took hold of Bowditch's Navigator, which I had
always with me. I had been through the greater part of it, and now
went carefully through it, from beginning to end working out most
of the examples. That done, and there being no signs of the Pilgrim,
I made a descent upon old Schmidt, and borrowed and read all the
books there were upon the beach. Such a dearth was there of these
latter articles, that anything, even a little child's story-book,
or the half of a shipping calendar, appeared like a treasure.
I actually read a jest-book through, from beginning to end, in one
day, as I should a novel, and enjoyed it very much. At last,
when I thought that there were no more to be got, I found, at the
bottom of old Schmidt's chest, "Mandeville, a Romance, by Godwin,
in five volumes." This I had never read, but Godwin's name was enough,
and after the wretched trash I had devoured, anything bearing the name
of a distinguished intellectual man, was a prize indeed. I bore it off,
and for two days I was up early and late, reading with all my might,
and actually drinking in delight. It is no extravagance to say that
it was like a spring in a desert land.
From the sublime to the ridiculous - so with me, from Mandeville
to hide-curing, was but a step; for
Wednesday, July 18th, brought us the brig Pilgrim from the windward.
As she came in, we found that she was a good deal altered in her
appearance. Her short top-gallant masts were up; her bowlines all
unrove (except to the courses); the quarter boom-irons off her lower
yards; her jack-cross-trees sent down; several blocks got rid of;
running-rigging rove in new places; and numberless other changes
of the same character. Then, too, there was a new voice giving orders,
and a new face on the quarter-deck, - a short, dark-complexioned man,
in a green jacket and a high leather cap.
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