In One Corner Of It, A Small Room Was Parted Off,
In Which Four Berths Were Made, Where We Were To Live, With Mother
Earth For Our Floor.
It contained a table, a small locker for pots,
spoons, plates, etc., and a small hole cut to let in the light.
Here we put our chests, threw our bedding into the berths, and took
up our quarters.
Over our head was another small room, in which
Mr. Russell lived, who had charge of the hide-house; the same man
who was for a time an officer of the Pilgrim. There he lived in
solitary grandeur; eating and sleeping alone, (and these were his
principal occupations,) and communing with his own dignity.
The boy was to act as cook; while myself, a giant of a Frenchman
named Nicholas, and four Sandwich Islanders, were to cure the hides.
Sam, the Frenchman, and myself, lived together in the room, and the
four Sandwich Islanders worked and ate with us, but generally slept
at the oven. My new messmate, Nicholas, was the most immense man
that I had ever seen in my life. He came on the coast in a vessel
which was afterwards wrecked, and now let himself out to the
different houses to cure hides. He was considerably over six
feet, and of a frame so large that he might have been shown
for a curiosity. But the most remarkable thing about him was his
feet. They were so large that he could not find a pair of shoes
in California to fit him, and was obliged to send to Oahu for a
pair; and when he got them, he was compelled to wear them down at
the heel. He told me once, himself, that he was wrecked in an
American brig on the Goodwin Sands, and was sent up to London,
to the charge of the American consul, without clothing to his
back or shoes to his feet, and was obliged to go about London
streets in his stocking feet three or four days, in the month
of January, until the consul could have a pair of shoes made
for him. His strength was in proportion to his size, and his
ignorance to his strength - "strong as an ox, and ignorant as
strong." He neither knew how to read nor write. He had been
to sea from a boy, and had seen all kinds of service, and been
in every kind of vessel: merchantmen, men-of-war, privateers,
and slavers; and from what I could gather from his accounts of
himself, and from what he once told me, in confidence, after we
had become better acquainted, he had even been in worse business
than slave-trading. He was once tried for his life in Charleston,
South Carolina, and though acquitted, yet he was so frightened that
he never would show himself in the United States again; and I could
not persuade him that he could never be tried a second time for the
same offence. He said he had got safe off from the breakers, and was
too good a sailor to risk his timbers again.
Though I knew what his life had been, yet I never had the slightest
fear of him. We always got along very well together, and, though
so much stronger and larger than I, he showed a respect for
my education, and for what he had heard of my situation before
coming to sea. "I'll be good friends with you," he used to say,
"for by-and-by you'll come out here captain, and then you'll haze me
well!" By holding well together, we kept the officer in good order,
for he was evidently afraid of Nicholas, and never ordered us,
except when employed upon the hides. My other companions,
the Sandwich Islanders, deserve particular notice.
A considerable trade has been carried on for several years between
California and the Sandwich Islands, and most of the vessels are
manned with Islanders; who, as they, for the most part, sign no
articles, leave whenever they choose, and let themselves out to
cure hides at San Diego, and to supply the places of the men of the
American vessels while on the coast. In this way, quite a colony
of them had become settled at San Diego, as their headquarters.
Some of these had recently gone off in the Ayacucho and Loriotte,
and the Pilgrim had taken Mr. Mannini and three others, so that
there were not more than twenty left. Of these, four were on pay
at the Ayacucho's house, four more working with us, and the rest
were living at the oven in a quiet way; for their money was nearly
gone, and they must make it last until some other vessel came down
to employ them.
During the four months that I lived here, I got well acquainted
with all of them, and took the greatest pains to become familiar
with their language, habits, and characters. Their language,
I could only learn, orally, for they had not any books among them,
though many of them had been taught to read and write by the
missionaries at home. They spoke a little English, and by a sort
of compromise, a mixed language was used on the beach, which could be
understood by all. The long name of Sandwich Islanders is dropped,
and they are called by the whites, all over the Pacific ocean,
"Kanákas," from a word in their own language which they apply to
themselves, and to all South Sea Islanders, in distinction from
whites, whom they call "Haole." This name, "Kanaka," they answer to,
both collectively and individually. Their proper names, in their
own language, being difficult to pronounce and remember, they are
called by any names which the captains or crews may choose to
give them. Some are called after the vessel they are in; others
by common names, as Jack, Tom, Bill; and some have fancy names,
as Ban-yan, Fore-top, Rope-yarn, Pelican, etc., etc.
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