They Soon, However,
Turned-In And Fell Asleep, And Probably Forgot All About It,
For The Next Morning The Dispute Was Not Renewed.
CHAPTER XVII
SAN DIEGO - A DESERTION - SAN PEDRO AGAIN - BEATING THE COAST
The next sound we heard was "All hands ahoy!" and looking up the
scuttle, saw that it was just daylight. Our liberty had now truly
taken flight, and with it we laid away our pumps, stockings,
blue jackets, neckerchiefs, and other go-ashore paraphernalia,
and putting on old duck trowsers, red shirts, and Scotch caps,
began taking out and landing our hides. For three days we were
hard at work, from the grey of the morning until starlight,
with the exception of a short time allowed for meals, in this duty.
For landing and taking on board hides, San Diego is decidedly the
best place in California. The harbor is small and land-locked;
there is no surf; the vessels lie within a cable's length of
the beach; and the beach itself is smooth, hard sand, without rocks
or stones. For these reasons, it is used by all the vessels in the trade,
as a depot; and, indeed, it would be impossible, when loading with
the cured hides for the passage home, to take them on board at any
of the open ports, without getting them wet in the surf, which
would spoil them. We took possession of one of the hide-houses,
which belonged to our firm, and had been used by the California.
It was built to hold forty thousand hides, and we had the pleasing
prospect of filling it before we could leave the coast; and toward
this, our thirty-five hundred, which we brought down with us,
would do but little.
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