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Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVI
San Francisco - Monterey
Our place of destination had been Monterey, but as we were to the
northward of it when the wind hauled a-head, we made a fair wind for San
Francisco. This large bay, which lies in latitude 37 degrees 58`, was
discovered by Sir Francis Drake, and by him represented to be (as indeed it
is) a magnificent bay, containing several good harbors, great depth of water,
and surrounded by a fertile and finely wooded country. About thirty miles from
the mouth of the bay, and on the south-east side, is a high point, upon
which the presidio is built. Behind this, is the harbor in which trading
vessels anchor, and near it, the mission of San Francisco, and a newly begun
settlement, mostly of Yankee Californians, called Yerba Buena, which promises
well. Here, at anchor, and the only vessel, was a brig under Russian colors,
from Asitka, in Russian America, which had come down to winter, and to take in
a supply of tallow and grain, great quantities of which latter article are
raised in the missions at the head of the bay. The second day after our
arrival, we went on board the brig, it being Sunday, as a matter of curiosity;
and there was enough there to gratify it. Though no larger than the Pilgrim,
she had five or six officers, and a crew of between twenty and thirty; and
such a stupid and greasy-looking set, I certainly never saw before. Although
it was quite comfortable weather, and we had nothing on but straw hats,
shirts, and duck trowsers, and were barefooted, they had, every man of them,
double-soled boots, coming up to the knees, and well greased; thick woolen
trowsers, frocks, waistcoats, pea-jackets, woolen caps, and everything in
true Nova Zembla rig; and in the warmest days they made no change. The
clothing of one of these men would weigh nearly as much as that of half our
crew. They had brutish faces, looked like the antipodes of sailors, and
apparently dealt in nothing but grease. They lived upon grease; eat it, drank
it, slept in the midst of it, and their clothes were covered with it. To a
Russian, grease is the greatest luxury. They looked with greedy eyes upon the
tallow-bags as they were taken into the vessel, and, no doubt, would have
eaten one up whole, had not the officer kept watch over it. The grease seemed
actually coming through their pores, and out in their hair, and on their
faces. It seems as if it were this saturation which makes them stand cold and
rain so well. If they were to go into a warm climate, they would all die of
the scurvy.
The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the oldest and
most inconvenient fashion possible; running trusses on the yards, and large
hawser cables, coiled all over the decks, and served and parcelled in all
directions. The topmasts, top-gallant masts and studding-sail booms were
nearly black for want of scraping, and the decks would have turned the stomach
of a man-of-war`s-man. The galley was down in the forecastle; and there
the crew lived, in the midst of the steam and grease of the cooking, in a
place as hot as an oven, and as dirty as a pigsty. Five minutes in the
forecastle was enough for us, and we were glad to get into the open air. We
made some trade with them, buying Indian curiosities, of which they had a
great number; such as bead-work, feathers of birds, fur moccasins, etc. I
purchased a large robe, made of the skins of some animals, dried and sewed
nicely together, and covered all over on the outside with thick downy
feathers, taken from the breasts of various birds, and arranged with their
different colors, so as to make a brilliant show.
A few days after our arrival, the rainy season set in, and, for three
weeks, it rained almost every hour, without cessation. This was bad for our
trade, for the collecting of hides in managed differently in this port from
what it is any other on the coast. The mission of San Francisco near the
anchorage, has no trade at all, but those of San Jose, Santa Clara, and
others, situated on large creeks or rivers which run into the bay, and distant
between fifteen and forty miles from the anchorage, do a greater business in
hides than any in California. Large boats, manned by Indians, and capable of
carrying nearly a thousand hides apiece, are attached to the missions, and
sent down to the vessels with hides, to bring away goods in return. Some of
the crews of the vessels are obliged to go and come in the boats, to look out
for the hides and goods. These are favorite expeditions with the sailors, in
fine weather; but now to be gone three or four days, in open boats, in
constant rain, without any shelter, and with cold food, was hard service. Two
of our men went up to Santa Clara in one of these boats, and were gone three
days, during all which time they had a constant rain, and did not sleep a
wink, but passed three long nights, walking fore and aft the boat, in the open
air. When they got on board, they were completely exhausted, and took a watch
below of twelve hours. All the hides, too, that came down in the boats, were
soaked with water, and unfit to put below, so that we were obliged to trice
them up to dry, in the intervals of sunshine or wind, upon all parts of the
vessel. We got up tricing-lines from the jib-boom-end to each arm of the fore
yard, and thence to the main and cross-jack yard-arms. Between the tops, too,
and the mast-heads, from the fore to the main swifters, and thence to the
mizen rigging, and in all directions athwartships, tricing-lines were run, and
strung with hides. The head stays and guys, and the spritsail-yard, were
lined, and, having still more, we got out the swinging booms, and strung them
and the forward and after guys, with hides. The rail, fore and aft, the
windlass, capstan, the sides of the ship, and every vacant place of deck, were
covered with wet hides, on the least sign of an interval for drying. Our ship
was nothing but a mass of hides, from the cat-harpins to the water`s edge,
and from the jib-boom-end to the taffrail.
One cold, rainy evening, about eight o`clock, I received orders to get
ready to start for San Jose at four the next morning, in one of these Indian
boats, with four days` provisions. I got my oil-cloth clothes, south-wester,
and thick boots all ready, and turned into my hammock early, determined to get
some sleep in advance, as the boat was to be alongside before daybreak. I
slept on till all hands were called in the morning; for, fortunately for me,
the Indians, intentionally, or from mistaking their orders, had gone off alone
in the night, and were far out of sight. Thus I escaped three or four days of
very uncomfortable service.
Four of our men, a few days afterwards, went up in one of the quarter -
boats to Santa Clara, to carry the agent, and remained out all night in a
drenching rain, in the small boat, where there was not room for them to turn
round; the agent having gone up to the mission and left the men to their fate,
making no provision for their accommodation, and not even sending them
anything to eat. After this, they had to pull thirty miles, and when they got
on board, were so stiff that they could not come up the gangway ladder. This
filled up the measure of the agent`s unpopularity, and never after this could
he get anything done by any of the crew; and many a delay and vexation, and
many a good ducking in the surf, did he get to pay up old scores, or "square
the yards with the bloody quill-driver."
Having collected nearly all the hides that were to be procured, we began
our preparations for taking in a supply of wood and water, for both of which,
San Francisco is the best place on the coast. A small island, situated about
two leagues from the anchorage, called by us "Wood Island," and by the
Spaniards "Isle de los Angelos," was covered with trees to the water`s edge;
and to this, two of our crew, who were Kennebec men, and could handle an axe
like a plaything, were sent every morning to cut wood, with two boys to pile
it up for them. In about a week, they had cut enough to last us a year, and
the third mate, with myself and three others, were sent over in a large,
schooner-rigged, open launch, which we had hired of the mission, to take in
the wood, and bring it to the ship. We left the ship about noon, but, owing to
a strong head wind, and a tide, which here runs four or five knots, did not
get into the harbor, formed by two points of the island, where the boats lie,
until sundown. No sooner had we come-to, than a strong south-easter, which
had been threatening us all day, set in, with heavy rain and a chilly
atmosphere. We were in rather a bad situation: an open boat, a heavy rain, and
a long night; for in winter, in this latitude, it was dark nearly fifteen
hours. Taking a small skiff which we had brought with us, we went ashore, but
found no shelter, for everything was open to the rain, and collecting a little
woods, which we found by lifting up the leaves and brush, and a few muscles,
we put aboard again, and made the best preparations in our power for passing
the night. We unbent the mainsail, and formed an awning with it over the after
part of the boat, made a bed of wet logs of wood, and, with our jackets on,
lay down, about six o`clock, to sleep. Finding the rain running down upon us,
and our jackets getting wet through, and the rough, knotty-logs, rather
indifferent couches, we turned out; and taking an iron pan which we brought
with us, we wiped it out dry, put some stones around it, cut the wet bark from
some sticks, and striking a light, made a small fire in the pan. Keeping some
sticks near, to dry, and covering the whole over with a roof of boards, we
kept up a small fire, by which we cooked our muscles, and eat them, rather for
an occupation than from hunger. Still, it was not ten o`clock, and the night
was long before us, when one of the party produced an old pack of Spanish
cards from his monkey-jacket pocket, which we hailed as a great windfall;
and keeping a dim, flickering light by our fagots, we played game after game,
till one or two o`clock, when, becoming really tired, we went to our logs
again, one sitting up at a time, in turn, to keep watch over the fire. Toward
morning, the rain ceased, and the air became sensibly colder, so that we found
sleep impossible, and sat up, watching for daybreak. No sooner was it light
than we went ashore, and began our preparations for loading our vessel. We
were not mistaken in the coldness of the weather, for a white frost was on the
ground, a thing we had never seen before in California, and one or two little
puddles of fresh water were skimmed over with a thin coat of ice. In this
state of the weather and before sunrise, in the grey of the morning, we had to
wade off, nearly up to our hips in water, to load the skiff with the wood by
armsfull. The third mate remained on board the launch, two more men staid in
the skiff, to load and manage it, and all the water-work, as usual, fell
upon the two youngest of us; and there we were, with frost on the ground,
wading forward and back, from the beach to the boat, with armsfull of wood,
barefooted, and our trowsers rolled up. When the skiff went off with her load,
we could only keep our feet from freezing by racing up and down the beach on
the hard sand, as fast as we could go. We were all day at this work, and
towards sundown, having loaded the vessel as deep as she would bear, we hove
up our anchor, and made sail, beating out the bay. No sooner had we got into
the large bay, than we found a strong tide setting us out to seaward, a thick
fog which prevented our seeing the ship, and a breeze too light to set us
against the tide; for we were as deep as a sand-barge. By the utmost
exertions, we saved ourselves from being carried out to sea, and were glad to
reach the leewardmost point of the island, where we came-to, and prepared to
pass another night, more uncomfortable than the first, for we were loaded up
to the gunwale, and had only a choice among logs and sticks for a resting -
place. The next morning, we made sail at slack water, with a fair wind, and
got on board by eleven o`clock, when all hands were turned-to, to unload and
stow away the wood, which took till night.
Having now taken in all our wood, the next morning a water-party was
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,
an 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 hope up our anchor and stood out
of the bay, with a fine starry heaven above us, - the first we had seen of
weeks and weeks. Before the light northerly winds, which blow here with the
regularity of trades, we worked slowly along, and made Point Ano Neuvo, 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.
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