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. Having nothing on but shirt,
trowsers, and hat, the common sea-rig of warm weather, I had
no stripping to do, and began my descent, by taking hold of the
rope in each hand, and slipping down, sometimes with hands and
feet round the rope, and sometimes breasting off with one hand
and foot against the precipice, and holding on to the rope with
the other. In this way I descended until I came to a place which
shelved in, and in which the hides were lodged.
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