We Pulled Aboard, And Found The Long-Boat Hoisted Out, And Nearly
Laden With Goods; And After Dinner, We All Went On Shore In The
Quarter-Boat, With The Long-Boat In Tow.
As we drew in, we found
an ox-cart and a couple of men standing directly on the brow of the
hill; and having landed, the captain took his way round the hill,
ordering me and one other to follow him.
We followed, picking our
way out, and jumping and scrambling up, walking over briers and
prickly pears, until we came to the top. Here the country stretched
out for miles as far as the eye could reach, on a level, table surface;
and the only habitation in sight was the small white mission of San
Juan Capistrano, with a few Indian huts about it, standing in a
small hollow, about a mile from where we were. Reaching the brow
of the hill where the cart stood, we found several piles of hides,
and Indians sitting round them. One or two other carts were coming
slowly on from the mission, and the captain told us to begin and
throw the hides down. This, then, was the way they were to be got
down: thrown down, one at a time, a distance of four hundred
feet! This was doing the business on a great scale. Standing on
the edge of the hill and looking down the perpendicular height,
the sailors,
- "That walk upon the beach,
Appeared like mice; and our tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock; her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight."
Down this height we pitched the hides, throwing them as far out
into the air as we could; and as they were all large, stiff,
and doubled, like the cover of a book, the wind took them, and they
swayed and eddied about, plunging and rising in the air, like a kite
when it has broken its string.
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