We Generally Kept One Fast To One Of The Houses
Every Day, So That We Could Mount Him And Catch Any Of The Others.
Some Of Them Were Really Fine Animals, And Gave Us Many Good Runs
Up To The Presidio And Over The Country.
CHAPTER XX
LEISURE - NEWS FROM HOME - "BURNING THE WATER"
After we had been a few weeks on shore, and had begun to feel
broken into the regularity of our life, its monotony was
interrupted by the arrival of two vessels from the windward.
We were sitting at dinner in our little room, when we heard the cry
of "Sail ho!" This, we had learned, did not always signify a vessel,
but was raised whenever a woman was seen coming down from the town;
or a squaw, or an ox-cart, or anything unusual, hove in sight upon
the road; so we took no notice of it. But it soon became so loud
and general from all parts of the beach, that we were led to go
to the door; and there, sure enough, were two sails coming round
the point, and leaning over from the strong north-west wind,
which blows down the coast every afternoon. The headmost was a
ship, and the other, a brig. Everybody was alive on the beach,
and all manner of conjectures were abroad. Some said it was the
Pilgrim, with the Boston ship, which we were expecting; but we soon
saw that the brig was not the Pilgrim, and the ship with her stump
top-gallant masts and rusty sides, could not be a dandy Boston
Indiaman.
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