He Promised To Take His Medicines
Regularly Until We Returned, And Insisted Upon It That He Was
Doing Better.
We got under weigh on the 10th, bound up to San Pedro, and had
three days of calm and head winds, making but little progress.
On the fourth, we took a stiff south-easter, which obliged us
to reef our topsails.
While on the yard, we saw a sail on the
weather bow, and in about half an hour, passed the Ayacucho,
under double-reefed topsails, beating down to San Diego.
Arrived at San Pedro on the fourth day, and came-to in the old
place, a league from shore, with no other vessel in port, and the
prospect of three weeks, or more, of dull life, rolling goods up
a slippery hill, carrying hides on our heads over sharp stones,
and, perhaps, slipping for a south-easter.
There was but one man in the only house here, and him I shall
always remember as a good specimen of a California ranger.
He had been a tailor in Philadelphia, and getting intemperate
and in debt, he joined a trapping party and went to the Columbia
river, and thence down to Monterey, where he spent everything,
left his party, and came to the Pueblo de los Angelos, to work
at his trade. Here he went dead to leeward among the pulperias,
gambling rooms, etc., and came down to San Pedro, to be moral by
being out of temptation. He had been in the house several weeks,
working hard at his trade, upon orders which he had brought with him,
and talked much of his resolution, and opened his heart to us about
his past life. After we had been here some time, he started off
one morning, in fine spirits, well dressed, to carry the clothes
which he had been making to the pueblo, and saying he would bring
back his money and some fresh orders the next day. The next day
came, and a week passed, and nearly a fortnight, when, one day,
going ashore, we saw a tall man, who looked like our friend the
tailor, getting out of the back of an Indian's cart, which had
just come down from the pueblo. He stood for the house, but we bore
up after him; when finding that we were overhauling him, he hove-to
and spoke us. Such a sight I never saw before. Barefooted, with an
old pair of trowsers tied round his waist by a piece of green hide,
a soiled cotton shirt, and a torn Indian hat; "cleaned out," to the
last reál, and completely "used up." He confessed the whole matter;
acknowledged that he was on his back; and now he had a prospect of a
fit of the horrors for a week, and of being worse than useless for
months. This is a specimen of the life of half of the Americans
and English who are adrift over the whole of California. One of
the same stamp was Russell, who was master of the hide-house
at San Diego, while I was there, and afterwards turned away
for his misconduct.
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