Its Old
Belfries Still Clanged With The Discordant Bells, And Mass Was
Saying Within, For It Is Used As A Place Of Worship For The
Extreme South Part Of The City.
In one of my walks about the wharves, I found a pile of dry hides
lying by the side of a vessel.
Here was something to feelingly
persuade me what I had been, to recall a past scarce credible to
myself. I stood lost in reflection. What were these hides - what
were they not? - to us, to me, a boy, twenty-four years ago?
These were our constant labor, our chief object, our almost
habitual thought. They brought us out here, they kept us here,
and it was only by getting them that we could escape from the
coast and return to home and civilized life. If it had not been
that I might be seen, I should have seized one, slung it over my
head, walked off with it, and thrown it by the old toss - I do not
believe yet a lost art - to the ground. How they called up to my
mind the months of curing at San Diego, the year and more of beach
and surf work, and the steering of the ship for home! I was in a
dream of San Diego, San Pedro - with its hills so steep for taking
up goods, and its stones so hard to our bare feet - and the cliffs
of San Juan! All this, too, is no more!
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