"If We Were Only Here For The
Last Time," We Had Often Said, "With Our Top-Gallant Masts Housed
And Our Sails Unbent!" - And Now We Had Our Wish.
Six weeks, or
two months, of the hardest work we had yet seen, was before us,
and then - "Good-by to California!"
CHAPTER XXIX
LOADING FOR HOME - A SURPRISE - LAST OF AN OLD FRIEND - THE LAST
HIDE - A HARD CASE - UP ANCHOR, FOR HOME! - HOMEWARD BOUND
We turned-in early, knowing that we might expect an early call;
and sure enough, before the stars had quite faded, "All hands ahoy!"
and we were turned-to, heaving out ballast. A regulation of the port
forbids any ballast to be thrown overboard; accordingly, our long-boat
was lined inside with rough boards and brought alongside the gangway,
but where one tub-full went into the boat, twenty went overboard.
This is done by every vessel, for the ballast can make but little
difference in the channel, and it saves more than a week of labor,
which would be spent in loading the boats, rowing them to the point,
and unloading them. When any people from the Presidio were on
board, the boat was hauled up and ballast thrown in; but when the
coast was clear, she was dropped astern again, and the ballast
fell overboard. This is one of those petty frauds which every
vessel practises in ports of inferior foreign nations, and which
are lost sight of, among the countless deeds of greater weight
which are hardly less common. Fortunately a sailor, not being a
free agent in work aboard ship, is not accountable; yet the fact
of being constantly employed, without thought, in such things,
begets an indifference to the rights of others.
Friday, and a part of Saturday, we were engaged in this work,
until we had thrown out all but what we wanted under our cargo
on the passage home; when, as the next day was Sunday, and a
good day for smoking ship, we cleared everything out of the
cabin and forecastle, made a slow fire of charcoal, birch bark,
brimstone, and other matters, on the ballast in the bottom of
the hold, calked up the hatches and every open seam, and pasted
over the cracks of the windows, and the slides of the scuttles,
and companionway. Wherever smoke was seen coming out, we calked
and pasted, and, so far as we could, made the ship smoke tight.
The captain and officers slept under the awning which was spread
over the quarter-deck; and we stowed ourselves away under an old
studding-sail, which we drew over one side of the forecastle.
The next day, from fear that something might happen, orders were
given for no one to leave the ship, and, as the decks were lumbered
up with everything, we could not wash them down, so we had nothing
to do, all day long. Unfortunately, our books were where we could not
get at them, and we were turning about for something to do, when one
man recollected a book he had left in the galley.
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