Having got everything ready, we set the
agent ashore, who went up to the mission to hasten down the
hides for the next morning. This night we had the strictest
orders to look out for south-easters; and the long, low clouds
seemed rather threatening. But the night passed over without
any trouble, and early the next morning, we hove out the long-boat
and pinnace, lowered away the quarter-boats, and went ashore to
bring off our hides. Here we were again, in this romantic spot;
a perpendicular hill, twice the height of the ship's mast-head,
with a single circuitous path to the top, and long sand beach at
its base, with the swell of the whole Pacific breaking high upon
it, and our hides ranged in piles on the overhanging summit.
The captain sent me, who was the only one of the crew that had
ever been there before, to the top, to count the hides and pitch
them down. There I stood again, as six months before, throwing
off the hides, and watching them, pitching and scaling, to the
bottom, while the men, dwarfed by the distance, were walking to
and fro on the beach, carrying the hides, as they picked them up,
to the distant boats, upon the tops of their heads. Two or three
boat-loads were sent off, until, at last, all were thrown down,
and the boats nearly loaded again; when we were delayed by a dozen
or twenty hides which had lodged in the recesses of the hill, and
which we could not reach by any missiles, as the general line of
the side was exactly perpendicular, and these places were caved
in, and could not be seen or reached from the top.
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