Two Years Before the Mast
ordered off with all the casks. From this we escaped, having had a
pretty good siege with the wooding. The water-party were gone three
days, during which time they narrowly escaped being carried out to sea,
and passed one day on an island, where one of them shot a deer, great
numbers of which overrun the islands and hills of San Francisco Bay.
While not off, on these wood and water parties, or up the rivers to the
missions, we had very easy times on board the ship. We were moored,
stem and stern, within a cable's length of the shore, safe from
south-easters, and with very little boating to do; and as it rained
nearly all the time, awnings were put over the hatchways, and all hands
sent down between decks, where we were at work, day after day, picking
oakum, until we got enough to caulk the ship all over, and to last the
whole voyage. Then we made a whole suit of gaskets for the voyage
home, a pair of wheel-ropes from strips of green hide, great quantities
of spun-yarn, and everything else that could be made between decks. It
being now mid-winter and in high latitude, the nights were very long,
so that we were not turned-to until seven in the morning, and were
obliged to knock off at five in the evening, when we got supper; which
gave us nearly three hours before eight bells, at which time the watch
was set.
As we had now been about a year on the coast, it was time to think of
the voyage home; and knowing that the last two or three months of our
stay would be very busy ones, and that we should never have so good an
opportunity to work for ourselves as the present, we all employed our
evenings in making clothes for the passage home, and more especially
for Cape Horn. As soon as supper was over and the kids cleared away,
and each one had taken his smoke, we seated ourselves on our chests
round the lamp, which swung from a beam, and each one went to work in
his own way, some making hats, others trowsers, others jackets, etc.,
etc.; and no one was idle. The boys who could not sew well enough to
make their own clothes, laid up grass into sinnet for the men, who
sewed for them in return. Several of us clubbed together and bought a
large piece of twilled cotton, which we made into trowsers and jackets,
and giving them several coats of linseed oil, laid them by for Cape
Horn. I also sewed and covered a tarpaulin hat, thick and strong
enough to sit down upon, and made myself a complete suit of flannel
under-clothing, for bad weather. Those who had no south-wester caps,
made them, and several of the crew made themselves tarpaulin jackets
and trowsers, lined on the inside with flannel. Industry was the order
of the day, and every one did something for himself; for we knew that
as the season advanced, and we went further south, we should have no
evenings to work in.
Friday, December 25th. This day was Christmas; and as it rained all
day long, and there were no hides to take in, and nothing especial to
do, the captain gave us a holiday, (the first we had had since leaving
Boston,) and plum duff for dinner. The Russian brig, following the Old
Style, had celebrated their Christmas eleven days before; when they had
a grand blow-out and (as our men said) drank, in the forecastle, a
barrel of gin, ate up a bag of tallow, and made a soup of the skin.
Sunday, December 27th. We had now finished all our business at this
port, and it being Sunday, we unmoored ship and got under weigh, firing
a salute to the Russian brig, and another to the Presidio, which were
both answered. The commandant of the Presidio, Don Gaudaloupe Villego,
a young man, and the most popular, among the Americans and English, of
any man in California, was on board when we got under weigh. He spoke
English very well, and was suspected of being favorably inclined to
foreigners.
We sailed down this magnificent bay with a light wind, the tide, which
was running out, carrying us at the rate of four or five knots. It was
a fine day; the first of entire sunshine we had had for more than a
month. We passed directly under the high cliff on which the Presidio
is built, and stood into the middle of the bay, from whence we could
see small bays, making up into the interior, on every side; large and
beautifully-wooded islands; and the mouths of several small rivers. If
California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the
centre of its prosperity. The abundance of wood and water, the extreme
fertility of its shores, the excellence of its climate, which is as
near to being perfect as any in the world, and its facilities for
navigation, affording the best anchoring-grounds in the whole western
coast of America, all fit it for a place of great importance; and,
indeed, it has attracted much attention, for the settlement of "Yerba
Buena," where we lay at anchor, made chiefly by Americans and English,
and which bids fair to become the most important trading place on the
coast, at this time began to supply traders, Russian ships, and
whalers, with their stores of wheat and frijoles.
The tide leaving us, we came to anchor near the mouth of the bay, under
a high and beautifully sloping hill, upon which herds of hundreds and
hundreds of red deer, and the stag, with his high branching antlers,
were bounding about, looking at us for a moment, and then starting off,
affrighted at the noises which we made for the purpose of seeing the
variety of their beautiful attitudes and motions.
At midnight, the tide having turned, we hove up our anchor and stood
out of the bay, with a fine starry heaven above us,--the first we had
seen for weeks and weeks. Before the light northerly winds, which blow
here with the regularity of trades, we worked slowly along, and made
Point Año Nuevo, the northerly point of the Bay of Monterey, on Monday
afternoon. We spoke, going in, the brig Diana, of the Sandwich
Islands, from the North-west Coast, last from Asitka. She was off the
point at the same time with us, but did not get in to the
anchoring-ground until an hour or two after us. It was ten o'clock on
Tuesday morning when we came to anchor. The town looked just as it did
when I saw it last, which was eleven months before, in the brig
Pilgrim. The pretty lawn on which it stands, as green as sun and rain
could make it; the pine wood on the south; the small river on the north
side; the houses, with their white plastered sides and red-tiled roofs,
dotted about on the green; the low, white presidio, with its soiled,
tri-colored flag flying, and the discordant din of drums and trumpets
for the noon parade; all brought up the scene we had witnessed here
with so much pleasure nearly a year before, when coming from a long
voyage, and our unprepossessing reception at Santa Barbara. It seemed
almost like coming to a home.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SUNDAY WASH-UP--ON SHORE--A SET-TO--A GRANDEE--"SAIL HO!"--A
FANDANGO
The only other vessel in port was the Russian government bark, from
Asitka, mounting eight guns, (four of which we found to be Quakers,)
and having on board the ex-governor, who was going in her to Mazatlan,
and thence overland to Vera Cruz. He offered to take letters, and
deliver them to the American consul at Vera Cruz, whence they could be
easily forwarded to the United States. We accordingly made up a packet
of letters, almost every one writing, and dating them "January 1st,
1836." The governor was true to his promise, and they all reached
Boston before the middle of March; the shortest communication ever yet
made across the country.
The brig Pilgrim had been lying in Monterey through the latter part of
November, according to orders, waiting for us. Day after day, Captain
Faucon went up to the hill to look out for us, and at last, gave us up,
thinking we must have gone down in the gale which we experienced off
Point Conception, and which had blown with great fury over the whole
coast, driving ashore several vessels in the snuggest ports. An
English brig, which had put into San Francisco, lost both her anchors;
the Rosa was driven upon a mud bank in San Diego; and the Pilgrim, with
great difficulty, rode out the gale in Monterey, with three anchors
a-head. She sailed early in December for San Diego and intermedios.
As we were to be here over Sunday, and Monterey was the best place to
go ashore on the whole coast, and we had had no liberty-day for nearly
three months, every one was for going ashore. On Sunday morning, as
soon as the decks were washed, and we had got breakfast, those who had
obtained liberty began to clean themselves, as it is called, to go
ashore. A bucket of fresh water apiece, a cake of soap, a large coarse
towel, and we went to work scrubbing one another, on the forecastle.
Having gone through this, the next thing was to get into the head,--one
on each side--with a bucket apiece, and duck one another, by drawing up
water and heaving over each other, while we were stripped to a pair of
trowsers. Then came the rigging-up. The usual outfit of pumps, white
stockings, loose white duck trowsers, blue jackets, clean checked
shirts, black kerchiefs, hats well varnished, with a fathom of black
ribbon over the left eye, a silk handkerchief flying from the outside
jacket pocket, and four or five dollars tied up in the back of the
neckerchief, and we were "all right." One of the quarter-boats pulled
us ashore, and we steamed up to the town. I tried to find the church,
in order to see the worship, but was told that there was no service,
except a mass early in the morning; so we went about the town, visiting
the Americans and English, and the natives whom we had known when we
were here before. Toward noon we procured horses, and rode out to the
Carmel mission, which is about a league from the town, where we got
something in the way of a dinner--beef, eggs, frijoles, tortillas, and
some middling wine--from the mayordomo, who, of course, refused to make
any charge, as it was the Lord's gift, yet received our present, as a
gratuity, with a low bow, a touch of the hat, and "Dios se lo pague!"
After this repast, we had a fine run, scouring the whole country on our
fleet horses, and came into town soon after sundown. Here we found our
companions who had refused to go to ride with us, thinking that a
sailor has no more business with a horse than a fish has with a
balloon. They were moored, stem and stern, in a grog-shop, making a
great noise, with a crowd of Indians and hungry half-breeds about them,
and with a fair prospect of being stripped and dirked, or left to pass
the night in the calabozo. With a great deal of trouble, we managed to
get them down to the boats, though not without many angry looks and
interferences from the Spaniards, who had marked them out for their
prey. The Diana's crew,--a set of worthless outcasts, who had been
picked up at the islands from the refuse of whale-ships,--were all as
drunk as beasts, and had a set-to, on the beach, with their captain,
who was in no better state than themselves. They swore they would not
go aboard, and went back to the town, were stripped and beaten, and
lodged in the calabozo, until the next day, when the captain bought
them out. Our forecastle, as usual after a liberty-day, was a scene of
tumult all night long, from the drunken ones. They had just got to
sleep toward morning, when they were turned up with the rest, and kept
at work all day in the water, carrying hides, their heads aching so
that they could hardly stand. This is sailor's pleasure.
Nothing worthy of remark happened while we were here, except a little
boxing-match on board our own ship, which gave us something to talk
about. A broad-backed, big-headed Cape Cod boy, about sixteen years
old, had been playing the bully, for the whole voyage, over a slender,