I Remember,
Among Other Things, His Speaking Of A Captain Whom I Had Known
By Report, Who Never Handed A
Thing to a sailor, but put it on
deck and kicked it to him; and of another, who was of
The best
connections in Boston, who absolutely murdered a lad from Boston
that went out with him before the mast to Sumatra, by keeping him
hard at work while ill of the coast fever, and obliging him to
sleep in the close steerage. (The same captain has since died
of the same fever on the same coast.)
In fact, taking together all that I learned from him of seamanship,
of the history of sailors' lives, of practical wisdom, and of human
nature under new circumstances, - a great history from which many are
shut out, - I would not part with the hours I spent in the watch with
that man for any given hours of my life passed in study and social
intercourse.
CHAPTER XXIV
SAN DIEGO AGAIN - A DESCENT - HURRIED DEPARTURE - A NEW SHIPMATE
Sunday, Oct. 11th. Set sail this morning for the leeward; passed
within sight of San Pedro, and, to our great joy, did not come
to anchor, but kept directly on to San Diego, where we arrived
and moored ship on.
Thursday, Oct. 15th. Found here the Italian ship La Rosa, from
the windward, which reported the brig Pilgrim at San Francisco,
all well. Everything was as quiet here as usual. We discharged
our hides, horns, and tallow, and were ready to sail again on the
following Sunday. I went ashore to my old quarters, and found the
gang at the hide-house going on in the even tenor of their way,
and spent an hour or two, after dark, at the oven, taking a whiff
with my old Kanaka friends, who really seemed glad to see me again,
and saluted me as the Aikane of the Kanakas. I was grieved to find
that my poor dog Bravo was dead. He had sickened and died suddenly,
the very day after I sailed in the Alert.
Sunday was again, as usual, our sailing day, and we got under weigh
with a stiff breeze, which reminded us that it was the latter part
of the autumn, and time to expect south-easters once more. We beat
up against a strong head wind, under reefed top-sails, as far as San
Juan, where we came to anchor nearly three miles from the shore,
with slip-ropes on our cables, in the old south-easter style
of last winter. On the passage up, we had an old sea captain
on board, who had married and settled in California, and had
not been on salt water for more than fifteen years. He was
astonished at the changes and improvements that had been made
in ships, and still more at the manner in which we carried sail;
for he was really a little frightened; and said that while we had
top-gallant sails on, he should have been under reefed topsails.
The working of the ship, and her progress to windward, seemed to
delight him, for he said she went to windward as though she were
kedging.
Tuesday, Oct. 20th. Having got everything ready, we set the
agent ashore, who went up to the mission to hasten down the
hides for the next morning. This night we had the strictest
orders to look out for south-easters; and the long, low clouds
seemed rather threatening. But the night passed over without
any trouble, and early the next morning, we hove out the long-boat
and pinnace, lowered away the quarter-boats, and went ashore to
bring off our hides. Here we were again, in this romantic spot;
a perpendicular hill, twice the height of the ship's mast-head,
with a single circuitous path to the top, and long sand beach at
its base, with the swell of the whole Pacific breaking high upon
it, and our hides ranged in piles on the overhanging summit.
The captain sent me, who was the only one of the crew that had
ever been there before, to the top, to count the hides and pitch
them down. There I stood again, as six months before, throwing
off the hides, and watching them, pitching and scaling, to the
bottom, while the men, dwarfed by the distance, were walking to
and fro on the beach, carrying the hides, as they picked them up,
to the distant boats, upon the tops of their heads. Two or three
boat-loads were sent off, until, at last, all were thrown down,
and the boats nearly loaded again; when we were delayed by a dozen
or twenty hides which had lodged in the recesses of the hill, and
which we could not reach by any missiles, as the general line of
the side was exactly perpendicular, and these places were caved
in, and could not be seen or reached from the top. As hides are
worth in Boston twelve and a half cents a pound, and the captain's
commission was two per cent, he determined not to give them up;
and sent on board for a pair of top-gallant studding-sail halyards,
and requested some one of the crew to go to the top, and come down
by the halyards. The older sailors said the boys, who were light
and active, ought to go, while the boys thought that strength and
experience were necessary. Seeing the dilemma, and feeling myself
to be near the medium of these requisites, I offered my services,
and went up, with one man to tend the rope, and prepared for the
descent.
We found a stake fastened strongly into the ground, and apparently
capable of holding my weight, to which we made one end of the
halyards well fast, and taking the coil, threw it over the brink.
The end, we saw, just reached to a landing-place, from which the
descent to the beach was easy.
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