Two Years Before the Mast
without rocks or stones. For these reasons, it is used by all the
vessels in the trade, as a depot; and, indeed, it would be impossible,
when loading with the cured hides for the passage home, to take them on
board at any of the open ports, without getting them wet in the surf,
which would spoil them. We took possession of one of the hide-houses,
which belonged to our firm, and had been used by the California. It was
built to hold forty thousand hides, and we had the pleasing prospect of
filling it before we could leave the coast; and toward this, our
thirty-five hundred, which we brought down with us, would do but
little. There was not a man on board who did not go a dozen times into
the house, and look round, and make some calculation of the time it
would require.
The hides, as they come rough and uncured from the vessels, are piled
up outside of the houses, whence they are taken and carried through a
regular process of pickling, drying, cleaning, etc., and stowed away in
the house, ready to be put on board. This process is necessary in
order that they may keep, during a long voyage, and in warm latitudes.
For the purpose of curing and taking care of these hides, an officer
and a part of the crew of each vessel are usually left ashore and it
was for this business, we found, that our new officer had joined us.
As soon as the hides were landed, he took charge of the house, and the
captain intended to leave two or three of us with him, hiring Sandwich
Islanders to take our places on board; but he could not get any
Sandwich Islanders to go, though he offered them fifteen dollars a
month; for the report of the flogging had got among them, and he was
called "aole maikai," (no good,) and that was an end of the business.
They were, however, willing to work on shore, and four of them were
hired and put with Mr. Russell to cure the hides.
After landing our hides, we next sent ashore all our spare spars and
rigging; all the stores which we did not want to use in the course of
one trip to windward; and, in fact, everything which we could spare, so
as to make room for hides: among other things, the pig-sty, and with it
"old Bess." This was an old sow that we had brought from Boston, and
which lived to get around Cape Horn, where all the other pigs died from
cold and wet. Report said that she had been a Canton voyage before.
She had been the pet of the cook during the whole passage, and he had
fed her with the best of everything, and taught her to know his voice,
and to do a number of strange tricks for his amusement. Tom Cringle
says that no one can fathom a negro's affection for a pig; and I
believe he is right, for it almost broke our poor darky's heart when he
heard that Bess was to be taken ashore, and that he was to have the
care of her no more during the whole voyage. He had depended upon her
as a solace, during the long trips up and down the coast. "Obey orders,
if you break owners!" said he. "Break hearts," he meant to have said;
and lent a hand to get her over the side, trying to make it as easy for
her as possible. We got a whip up on the main-yard, and hooking it to
a strap around her body, swayed away; and giving a wink to one another,
ran her chock up to the yard. "'Vast there! 'vast!" said the mate;
"none of your skylarking! Lower away!" But he evidently enjoyed the
joke. The pig squealed like the "crack of doom," and tears stood in
the poor darky's eyes; and he muttered something about having no pity
on a dumb beast. "Dumb beast!" said Jack; "if she's what you call a
dumb beast, then my eyes a'n't mates." This produced a laugh from all
but the cook. He was too intent upon seeing her safe in the boat. He
watched her all the way ashore, where, upon her landing, she was
received by a whole troop of her kind, who had been sent ashore from
the other vessels, and had multiplied and formed a large commonwealth.
From the door of his galley, the cook used to watch them in their
manoeuvres, setting up a shout and clapping his hands whenever Bess
came off victorious in the struggles for pieces of raw hide and
half-picked bones which were lying about the beach. During the day, he
saved all the nice things, and made a bucket of swill, and asked us to
take it ashore in the gig, and looked quite disconcerted when the mate
told him that he would pitch the swill overboard, and him after it, if
he saw any of it go into the boats. We told him that he thought more
about the pig than he did about his wife, who lived down in Robinson's
Alley; and, indeed, he could hardly have been more attentive, for he
actually, on several nights, after dark, when he thought he would not
be seen, sculled himself ashore in a boat with a bucket of nice swill,
and returned like Leander from crossing the Hellespont.
The next Sunday the other half of our crew went ashore on liberty, and
left us on board, to enjoy the first quiet Sunday which we had had upon
the coast. Here were no hides to come off, and no south-easters to
fear. We washed and mended our clothes in the morning, and spent the
rest of the day in reading and writing. Several of us wrote letters to
send home by the Lagoda. At twelve o'clock the Ayacucho dropped her
fore topsail, which was a signal for her sailing. She unmoored and
warped down into the bight, from which she got under way. During this
operation, her crew were a long time heaving at the windlass, and I
listened for nearly an hour to the musical notes of a Sandwich
Islander, called Mahannah, who "sang out" for them. Sailors, when
heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always
have one to sing out; which is done in a peculiar, high and long-drawn
note, varying with the motion of the windlass. This requires a high
voice, strong lungs, and much practice, to be done well. This fellow
had a very peculiar, wild sort of note, breaking occasionally into a
falsetto. The sailors thought it was too high, and not enough of the
boatswain hoarseness about it; but to me it had a great charm. The
harbor was perfectly still, and his voice rang among the hills, as
though it could have been heard for miles. Toward sundown, a good
breeze having sprung up, she got under weigh, and with her long, sharp
head cutting elegantly through the water, on a taut bowline, she
stood directly out of the harbor, and bore away to the southward. She
was bound to Callao, and thence to the Sandwich Islands, and expected
to be on the coast again in eight or ten months.
At the close of the week we were ready to sail, but were delayed a day
or two by the running away of F----, the man who had been our second
mate, and was turned forward. From the time that he was "broken," he
had had a dog's berth on board the vessel, and determined to run away
at the first opportunity. Having shipped for an officer when he was not
half a seaman, he found little pity with the crew, and was not man
enough to hold his ground among them. The captain called him a
"soger,"[1] and promised to "ride him down as he would the main tack;"
and when officers are once determined to "ride a man down," it is a
gone case with him. He had had several difficulties with the captain,
and asked leave to go home in the Lagoda; but this was refused him. One
night he was insolent to an officer on the beach, and refused to come
aboard in the boat. He was reported to the captain; and as he came
aboard,--it being past the proper hour,--he was called aft, and told
that he was to have a flogging. Immediately, he fell down on the deck,
calling out--"Don't flog me, Captain T----; don't flog me!" and the
captain, angry with him, and disgusted with his cowardice, gave him a
few blows over the back with a rope's end and sent him forward. He was
not much hurt, but a good deal frightened, and made up his mind to run
away that very night. This was managed better than anything he ever
did in his life, and seemed really to show some spirit and forethought.
He gave his bedding and mattress to one of the Lagoda's crew, who took
it aboard his vessel as something which he had bought, and promised to
keep it for him. He then unpacked his chest, putting all his valuable
clothes into a large canvas bag, and told one of us, who had the watch,
to call him at midnight. Coming on deck, at midnight, and finding no
officer on deck, and all still aft, he lowered his bag into a boat, got
softly down into it, cast off the painter, and let it drop silently
with the tide until he was out of hearing, when he sculled ashore.
The next morning, when all hands were mustered, there was a great stir
to find F----. Of course, we would tell nothing, and all they could
discover was, that he had left an empty chest behind him, and that he
went off in a boat; for they saw it lying up high and dry on the beach.
After breakfast, the captain went up to the town, and offered a reward
of twenty dollars for him; and for a couple of days, the soldiers,
Indians, and all others who had nothing to do, were scouring the
country for him, on horseback, but without effect; for he was safely
concealed, all the time, within fifty rods of the hide-houses. As soon
as he had landed, he went directly to the Lagoda's hide-house, and a
part of her crew, who were living there on shore, promised to conceal
him and his traps until the Pilgrim should sail, and then to intercede
with Captain Bradshaw to take him on board the ship. Just behind the
hide-houses, among the thickets and underwood, was a small cave, the
entrance to which was known only to two men on the beach, and which was
so well concealed that, though, when I afterwards came to live on
shore, it was shown to me two or three times, I was never able to find
it alone. To this cave he was carried before daybreak in the morning,
and supplied with bread and water, and there remained until he saw us
under weigh and well round the point.
Friday, March 27th. The captain, having given up all hope of finding
F----, and being unwilling to delay any longer, gave orders for
unmooring the ship, and we made sail, dropping slowly down with the
tide and light wind. We left letters with Captain Bradshaw to take to
Boston, and had the satisfaction of hearing him say that he should be
back again before we left the coast. The wind, which was very light,
died away soon after we doubled the point, and we lay becalmed for two
days, not moving three miles the whole time, and a part of the second
day were almost within sight of the vessels. On the third day, about
noon, a cool sea-breeze came rippling and darkening the surface of the
water, and by sundown we were off San Juan's, which is about forty
miles from San Diego, and is called half way to San Pedro, where we
were now bound. Our crew was now considerably weakened. One man we had
lost overboard; another had been taken aft as clerk; and a third had
run away; so that, beside S---- and myself, there were only three able
seamen and one boy of twelve years of age. With this diminished and
discontented crew, and in a small vessel, we were now to battle the
watch through a couple of years of hard service; yet there was not one
who was not glad that F---- had escaped; for, shiftless and good for
nothing as he was, no one could wish to see him dragging on a miserable
life, cowed down and disheartened; and we were all rejoiced to hear,
upon our return to San Diego, about two months afterwards, that he had
been immediately taken aboard the Lagoda, and went home in her, on
regular seaman's wages.
After a slow passage of five days, we arrived, on Wednesday, the first
of April, at our old anchoring ground at San Pedro. The bay was as
deserted, and looked as dreary, as before, and formed no pleasing
contrast with the security and snugness of San Diego, and the activity