The Only Other Animals Were Horses.
Over A Dozen Of These Were Owned By Different People On The Beach,
And
Were allowed to run loose among the hills, with a long lasso
attached to them, and pick up feed wherever
They could find it.
We were sure of seeing them once a day, for there was no water
among the hills, and they were obliged to come down to the well
which had been dug upon the beach. These horses were bought at,
from two, to six and eight dollars apiece, and were held very much
as common property. We generally kept one fast to one of the houses
every day, so that we could mount him and catch any of the others.
Some of them were really fine animals, and gave us many good runs
up to the Presidio and over the country.
CHAPTER XX
LEISURE - NEWS FROM HOME - "BURNING THE WATER"
After we had been a few weeks on shore, and had begun to feel
broken into the regularity of our life, its monotony was
interrupted by the arrival of two vessels from the windward.
We were sitting at dinner in our little room, when we heard the cry
of "Sail ho!" This, we had learned, did not always signify a vessel,
but was raised whenever a woman was seen coming down from the town;
or a squaw, or an ox-cart, or anything unusual, hove in sight upon
the road; so we took no notice of it. But it soon became so loud
and general from all parts of the beach, that we were led to go
to the door; and there, sure enough, were two sails coming round
the point, and leaning over from the strong north-west wind,
which blows down the coast every afternoon. The headmost was a
ship, and the other, a brig. Everybody was alive on the beach,
and all manner of conjectures were abroad. Some said it was the
Pilgrim, with the Boston ship, which we were expecting; but we soon
saw that the brig was not the Pilgrim, and the ship with her stump
top-gallant masts and rusty sides, could not be a dandy Boston
Indiaman. As they drew nearer, we soon discovered the high poop
and top-gallant forecastle, and other marks of the Italian ship Rosa,
and the brig proved to be the Catalina, which we saw at Santa Barbara,
just arrived from Valparaiso. They came to anchor, moored ship,
and commenced discharging hides and tallow. The Rosa had purchased
the house occupied by the Lagoda, and the Catalina took the other
spare one between ours and the Ayacucho's, so that, now, each one
was occupied, and the beach, for several days, was all alive.
The Catalina had several Kanakas on board, who were immediately
besieged by the others, and carried up to the oven, where they had
a long pow-wow, and a smoke. Two Frenchmen, who belonged to the
Rosa's crew, came in, every evening, to see Nicholas; and from them
we learned that the Pilgrim was at San Pedro, and was the only other
vessel now on the coast. Several of the Italians slept on shore at
their hide-house; and there, and at the tent in which the Fazio's
crew lived, we had some very good singing almost every evening.
The Italians sang a variety of songs - barcarollas, provincial airs,
etc.; in several of which I recognized parts of our favorite operas
and sentimental songs. They often joined in a song, taking all the
different parts; which produced a fine effect, as many of them had good
voices, and all seemed to sing with spirit and feeling. One young
man, in particular, had a falsetto as clear as a clarionet.
The greater part of the crews of the vessels came ashore every
evening, and we passed the time in going about from one house to
another, and listening to all manner of languages. The Spanish was
the common ground upon which we all met; for every one knew more or
less of that. We had now, out of forty or fifty, representatives
from almost every nation under the sun: two Englishmen, three Yankees,
two Scotchmen, two Welshmen, one Irishman, three Frenchmen (two of
whom were Normans, and the third from Gascony,) one Dutchman,
one Austrian, two or three Spaniards, (from old Spain,) half a
dozen Spanish-Americans and half-breeds, two native Indians from
Chili and the Island of Chiloe, one Negro, one Mulatto, about twenty
Italians, from all parts of Italy, as many more Sandwich Islanders,
one Otaheitan, and one Kanaka from the Marquesas Islands.
The night before the vessels were ready to sail, all the
Europeans united and had an entertainment at the Rosa's hide-house,
and we had songs of every nation and tongue. A German gave us
"Och! mein lieber Augustin!" the three Frenchmen roared through the
Marseilles Hymn; the English and Scotchmen gave us "Rule Britannia,"
and "Wha'll be King but Charlie?" the Italians and Spaniards screamed
through some national affairs, for which I was none the wiser;
and we three Yankees made an attempt at the "Star-spangled Banner."
After these national tributes had been paid, the Austrian gave us
a very pretty little love-song, and the Frenchmen sang a spirited
thing called "Sentinelle! O prenez garde a vous!" and then
followed the melange which might have been expected. When I
left them, the aguardiente and annisou was pretty well in their
heads, and they were all singing and talking at once, and their
peculiar national oaths were getting as plenty as pronouns.
The next day, the two vessels got under weigh for the windward,
and left us in quiet possession of the beach. Our numbers were
somewhat enlarged by the opening of the new houses, and the society
of the beach a little changed. In charge of the Catalina's house,
was an old Scotchman, who, like most of his countrymen, had a pretty
good education, and, like many of them, was rather pragmatical,
and had a ludicrously solemn conceit.
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