There I Stood Again, As Six Months Before, Throwing
Off The Hides, And Watching Them, Pitching And Scaling, To The
Bottom, while the men, dwarfed by the distance, were walking to
and fro on the beach, carrying the hides, as
They picked them up,
to the distant boats, upon the tops of their heads. Two or three
boat-loads were sent off, until, at last, all were thrown down,
and the boats nearly loaded again; when we were delayed by a dozen
or twenty hides which had lodged in the recesses of the hill, and
which we could not reach by any missiles, as the general line of
the side was exactly perpendicular, and these places were caved
in, and could not be seen or reached from the top. As hides are
worth in Boston twelve and a half cents a pound, and the captain's
commission was two per cent, he determined not to give them up;
and sent on board for a pair of top-gallant studding-sail halyards,
and requested some one of the crew to go to the top, and come down
by the halyards. The older sailors said the boys, who were light
and active, ought to go, while the boys thought that strength and
experience were necessary. Seeing the dilemma, and feeling myself
to be near the medium of these requisites, I offered my services,
and went up, with one man to tend the rope, and prepared for the
descent.
We found a stake fastened strongly into the ground, and apparently
capable of holding my weight, to which we made one end of the
halyards well fast, and taking the coil, threw it over the brink.
The end, we saw, just reached to a landing-place, from which the
descent to the beach was easy. Having nothing on but shirt,
trowsers, and hat, the common sea-rig of warm weather, I had
no stripping to do, and began my descent, by taking hold of the
rope in each hand, and slipping down, sometimes with hands and
feet round the rope, and sometimes breasting off with one hand
and foot against the precipice, and holding on to the rope with
the other. In this way I descended until I came to a place which
shelved in, and in which the hides were lodged. Keeping hold of
the rope with one hand, I scrambled in, and by the other hand
and feet succeeded in dislodging all the hides, and continued on
my way. Just below this place, the precipice projected again,
and going over the projection, I could see nothing below me but
the sea and the rocks upon which it broke, and a few gulls flying
in mid-air. I got down in safety, pretty well covered with dirt;
and for my pains was told, "What a d - d fool you were to risk your
life for a half a dozen hides!"
While we were carrying the hides to the boat, I perceived, what I
had been too busy to observe before, that heavy black clouds were
rolling up from seaward, a strong swell heaving in, and every sign
of a south-easter.
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