After Landing And Rolling Them Over The Stones
Upon The Beach, We Stopped, Waiting For The Carts To Come Down
The
hill and take them; but the captain soon settled the matter by ordering
us to carry them all up
To the top, saying that, that was "California
fashion." So what the oxen would not do, we were obliged to do.
The hill was low, but steep, and the earth, being clayey and wet
with the recent rains, was but bad holding-ground for our feet.
The heavy barrels and casks we rolled up with some difficulty,
getting behind and putting our shoulders to them; now and then
our feet slipping, added to the danger of the casks rolling back
upon us. But the greatest trouble was with the large boxes of
sugar. These, we had to place upon oars, and lifting them up rest
the oars upon our shoulders, and creep slowly up the hill with the
gait of a funeral procession. After an hour or two of hard work,
we got them all up, and found the carts standing full of hides,
which we had to unload, and also to load again with our own goods;
the lazy Indians, who came down with them, squatting down on their
hams, looking on, doing nothing, and when we asked them to help us,
only shaking their heads, or drawling out "no quiero."
Having loaded the carts, we started up the Indians, who went
off, one on each side of the oxen, with long sticks, sharpened at
the end, to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving
labor in California; - two Indians to two oxen. Now, the hides
were to be got down; and for this purpose, we brought the boat
round to a place where the hill was steeper, and threw them down,
letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we
had to let ourselves down and set them agoing again; and in this
way got covered with dust, and our clothes torn. After we had
got them all down, we were obliged to take them on our heads,
and walk over the stones, and through the water, to the boat.
The water and the stones together would wear out a pair of shoes
a day, and as shoes were very scarce and very dear, we were compelled
to go barefooted. At night, we went on board, having had the hardest
and most disagreeable day's work that we had yet experienced.
For several days, we were employed in this manner, until we had
landed forty or fifty tons of goods, and brought on board about
two thousand hides; when the trade began to slacken, and we were
kept at work, on board, during the latter part of the week,
either in the hold or upon the rigging. On Thursday night,
there was a violent blow from the northward, but as this was
off-shore, we had only to let go our other anchor and hold on.
We were called up at night to send down the royal-yards.
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