The Second Morning After Leaving Monterey, We Were Off Point Conception.
It Was A Bright, Sunny Day, And The Wind,
Though strong, was fair;
and everything was in striking contrast with our experience in the
same place two months before,
When we were drifting off from a
northwester under a fore and main spencer. "Sail ho!" cried a
man who was rigging out a top-gallant studding-sail boom. - "Where
away?" - "Weather beam, sir!" and in a few minutes a full-rigged
brig was seen standing out from under Point Conception. The
studding-sail halyards were let go, and the yards boom-ended,
the after yards braced aback, and we waited her coming down.
She rounded to, backed her main topsail, and showed her decks
full of men, four guns on a side, hammock nettings, and everything
man-of-war fashion, except that there was no boatswain's whistle,
and no uniforms on the quarter-deck. A short, square-built man,
in a rough grey jacket, with a speaking-trumpet in hand, stood in
the weather hammock nettings. "Ship ahoy!" - "Hallo!" - "What ship
is that, pray?" - "Alert." - "Where are you from, pray?" etc., etc.
She proved to be the brig Convoy, from the Sandwich Islands,
engaged in otter hunting, among the islands which lie along
the coast. Her armament was from her being an illegal trader.
The otter are very numerous among these islands, and being of
great value, the government require a heavy sum for a license to
hunt them, and lay a high duty upon every one shot or carried out
of the country.
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