We Pulled Aboard, And Found The Long-Boat Hoisted Out, And Nearly
Laden With Goods; And After Dinner, We All Went On Shore In The
Quarter-Boat, With The Long-Boat In Tow.
As we drew in, we found
an ox-cart and a couple of men standing directly on the brow of the
hill; and having landed, the captain took his way round the hill,
ordering me and one other to follow him.
We followed, picking our
way out, and jumping and scrambling up, walking over briers and
prickly pears, until we came to the top. Here the country stretched
out for miles as far as the eye could reach, on a level, table surface;
and the only habitation in sight was the small white mission of San
Juan Capistrano, with a few Indian huts about it, standing in a
small hollow, about a mile from where we were. Reaching the brow
of the hill where the cart stood, we found several piles of hides,
and Indians sitting round them. One or two other carts were coming
slowly on from the mission, and the captain told us to begin and
throw the hides down. This, then, was the way they were to be got
down: thrown down, one at a time, a distance of four hundred
feet! This was doing the business on a great scale. Standing on
the edge of the hill and looking down the perpendicular height,
the sailors,
- "That walk upon the beach,
Appeared like mice; and our tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock; her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight."
Down this height we pitched the hides, throwing them as far out
into the air as we could; and as they were all large, stiff,
and doubled, like the cover of a book, the wind took them, and they
swayed and eddied about, plunging and rising in the air, like a kite
when it has broken its string. As it was now low tide, there was
no danger of their falling into the water, and as fast as they came
to ground, the men below picked them up, and taking them on their
heads, walked off with them to the boat. It was really a picturesque
sight: the great height; the scaling of the hides; and the continual
walking to and fro of the men, who looked like mites, on the beach!
This was the romance of hide-droghing!
Some of the hides lodged in cavities which were under the bank and
out of our sight, being directly under us; but by sending others down
in the same direction, we succeeded in dislodging them. Had they
remained there, the captain said he should have sent on board for
a couple of pairs of long halyards, and got some one to have gone
down for them. It was said that one of the crew of an English brig
went down in the same way, a few years before. We looked over,
and thought it would not be a welcome task, especially for a few
paltry hides; but no one knows what he can do until he is called
upon; for, six months afterwards, I went down the same place by
a pair of top-gallant studding-sail halyards, to save a half a
dozen hides which had lodged there.
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