A Half Hour Of Such Sailing Served Our
Turn, When The Clews Of The Sail Were Hauled Up, The Sail
Furled,
and the ship, eased of her press, went more quietly on her way.
Soon after, the foresail was reefed,
And we mizen-top men were
sent up to take another reef in the mizen topsail. This was the
first time I had taken a weather earing, and I felt not a little
proud to sit, astride of the weather yard-arm, pass the earing,
and sing out "Haul out to leeward!" From this time until we got
to Boston, the mate never suffered any one but our own gang to
go upon the mizen topsail yard, either for reefing or furling,
and the young English lad and myself generally took the earings
between us.
Having cleared the point and got well out to sea, we squared away
the yards, made more sail, and stood on, nearly before the wind,
for San Pedro. It blew strong, with some rain, nearly all night,
but fell calm toward morning, and the gale having gone over,
we came-to, -
Thursday, Oct. 22d, at San Pedro, in the old south-easter berth,
a league from shore, with a slip-rope on the cable, reefs in the
topsails, and rope-yarns for gaskets. Here we lay ten days,
with the usual boating, hide-carrying, rolling of cargo up the
steep hill, walking barefooted over stones, and getting drenched
in salt water.
The third day after our arrival, the Rosa came in from San Juan,
where she went the day after the south-easter. Her crew said it was
as smooth as a mill-pond, after the gale, and she took off nearly
a thousand hides, which had been brought down for us, and which
we lost in consequence of the south-easter. This mortified us;
not only that an Italian ship should have got to windward of us in
the trade, but because every thousand hides went toward completing
the forty thousand which we were to collect before we could say
good-by to California.
While lying here, we shipped one new hand, an Englishman, of about
two or three and twenty, who was quite an acquisition, as he proved
to be a good sailor, could sing tolerably, and, what was of more
importance to me, had a good education, and a somewhat remarkable
history. He called himself George P. Marsh; professed to have been
at sea from a small boy, and to have served his time in the smuggling
trade between Germany and the coasts of France and England. Thus he
accounted for his knowledge of the French language, which he spoke
and read as well as he did English; but his cutter education would
not account for his English, which was far too good to have been
learned in a smuggler; for he wrote an uncommonly handsome hand,
spoke with great correctness, and frequently, when in private talk
with me, quoted from books, and showed a knowledge of the customs
of society, and particularly of the formalities of the various
English courts of law, and of Parliament, which surprised me.
Still, he would give no other account of himself than that he
was educated in a smuggler.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 159 of 324
Words from 82601 to 83144
of 170236
