We Continued At Work In This Manner Until The Lower Hold Was Filled
To Within Four Feet Of The Beams, When All Hands Were Called Aboard
To Commence Steeving.
As this is a peculiar operation, it will
require a minute description.
Before stowing the hides, as I have said, the ballast is levelled
off, just above the keelson, and then loose dunnage placed upon it,
on which the hides rest. The greatest care is used in stowing, to make
the ship hold as many hides as possible. It is no mean art, and a man
skilled in it is an important character in California. Many a dispute
have I heard raging high between professed "beach-combers," as to
whether the hides should be stowed "shingling," or "back-to-back,
and flipper-to-flipper;" upon which point there was an entire and
bitter division of sentiment among the savans. We adopted each
method at different periods of the stowing, and parties ran high
in the forecastle, some siding with "old Bill" in favor of the
former, and others scouting him, and relying upon "English Bob"
of the Ayacucho, who had been eight years in California, and was
willing to risk his life and limb for the latter method. At length
a compromise was effected, and a middle course, of shifting the ends
and backs at every lay, was adopted, which worked well, and which,
though they held it inferior to their own, each party granted was
better than that of the other.
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