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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43342 ***
+
+  ROUND CAPE HORN.
+
+  VOYAGE
+  OF THE
+
+  PASSENGER-SHIP JAMES W. PAIGE,
+  FROM MAINE TO CALIFORNIA IN THE YEAR 1852.
+
+  BY J. LAMSON.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  BANGOR:
+  PRESS OF O. F. & W. H. KNOWLES.
+  1878.
+
+
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
+
+     J. LAMSON,
+
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, in Washington.
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+
+  My Fellow-Passengers,
+
+  AS A REMINDER OF MANY PLEASANT SCENES ENJOYED,
+  AND MANY ANNOYANCES ENDURED DURING OUR
+  VOYAGE, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+A voyage round Cape Horn in a passenger-ship is an event of the past.
+The necessity for performing this perilous voyage has been obviated by
+the introduction of railroads and steamships. Emigrants and travelers
+are no longer obliged to risk their lives and waste their time in
+passing round the Stormy Cape in order to arrive at a point, which may
+be reached in a week by a pleasant ride across the continent on the
+railroad; and Cape Horn is destined to become a terra incognita to all
+but the readers of ancient voyages.
+
+I am not aware that a narrative of a voyage of this description has
+ever been published; and the hope that a truthful account of the
+perils, discomforts, and annoyances, as well as the pleasures and
+enjoyments attending it, may prove entertaining to the reader, has
+prompted me to send forth this little work to meet the fate or fortune
+which an enlightened public may award it.
+
+The scenes and anecdotes recorded at the end of the voyage, are given
+in the hope that they may possess some slight value as conveying
+an idea--a vague and indistinct one, perhaps--of some of the
+characteristics and habits of a portion of the people of California in
+early times.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  Description of the Bark--She sets Sail--Uncomfortable
+    Situation--Specimen of our Discomforts--A Squall--Escape from
+    a Waterspout--Approach to the Cape Verde Islands--Religious
+    Services--A School of Porpoises--A Dutch Vessel--A
+    Flying-fish--Annoyances--Bad Cooking--A Practical Joke--Tropic of
+    Cancer      13
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  Consultations about Cape Verde Islands--Flying-fish--English
+    Steamer--Tropical Showers--Disappointment--Capture of a
+    Porpoise--May-Day at Sea--An English Bark--Letters for
+    Home--Another Bark--Nautical Ceremonies--An Aquatic Bird--Crossing
+    the Equator--Squalls--A Portuguese Brig--Captain J. engages
+    to stop at Rio Janeiro--Land Seen--Cape Frio--Approach to Rio
+    Janeiro--Beautiful Scenery--Disappointment      21
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  A Mistake Discovered and Corrected--Ill Health--Scenery of the Coast
+    and Harbor of Rio Janeiro--We cast Anchor--Going Ashore--Rambles
+    in the City--Fountains--Markets--Parrots--Hammer-headed
+    Sharks--Monkeys--Slaves--Tropical Trees--Visit to a Hotel--English
+    Gentlemen--Public Gardens      29
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  Visit to the Botanical Garden--Description of the Garden--Dinner
+    at the Hotel--Third Visit to the City--Impudence of the First
+    Mate--Village of San Domingo--A Walk in the Country--Attacked by
+    Dogs--Beautiful Plantations--Civility of a Planter--Elegant Mansion
+    and Grounds--A Retreat--A Fine Road--Return to the Ship--Supply of
+    Fruit--The North America--Mr. Kent, our Consul      36
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  Weigh Anchor--Civility of the People of Rio--Temperance--An
+    Altercation--Cold Weather--Cape Pigeons--Large Bird--Our Kitchen
+    Establishment--Stewards and Cooks--Scouse--Inspection of Cooks'
+    Galley--A Joke--A Squall--An Altercation--Captain J. and Mrs.
+    L----t--Cape Pigeons--Oranges      46
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  A Disagreeable Scene--Scarcity of Oil--Lamps and Slush--An
+    Albatross--Ill Manners of the Mate--Cold Weather--The Whiffletree
+    Watch--Disagreeable Scene--Magellan Clouds and Southern Cross--An
+    Act of Kindness--Turnovers and Sport--Tierra del Fuego and Staten
+    Land--A Perilous Passage--Ducks and Cape Pigeons--A Squall--A Black
+    Albatross--Cape Horn--Stormy Weather--A Gale--Accident at the
+    Breakfast Table      54
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  Severe Cold--Furious Storm--Diego Ramirez Islands--Land
+    Ahead--Cape Horn Weather--Two Vessels--Length of Days and
+    Nights--Disagreeable Brawl--Heading North--Patagonia--The
+    Andes--Another Storm--Anxiety of Captain J.--A Lunar
+    Rainbow--Another Gale--Bill of Fare--Filthy Cooks and
+    Impure Water      63
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  Captain Jackson--A Drifting Spar--Approaching
+    Talcahuana--Washing-day--Landscapes--Harbor of
+    Talcahuana--Pelicans--A Visit from Officials--Description of the
+    Town--American Houses--Tremont House--A Dinner      72
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  Character of the Inhabitants--Agricultural Implements--Lassoing
+    Cattle--Poncho--A Covered Wagon--Wild Doves--An Earthquake--An
+    Excursion--Dogs, Women, Children, and Shells--A Scotchman and his
+    Wine--An Adventure and the Calaboose--A Chilian Musket Fished
+    Up--An Affecting Incident--Fruit Market--Leave Talcahuana--An
+    Explanation--Theft in the Cooks' Galley--Disinterested
+    Advice--Uneasiness of Mrs. L----t and Captain J.      80
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  Religious Services--A Beautiful Bird--Departure of Cape Pigeons
+    and Albatrosses--Stormy Petrels--Amusements--Harmony among
+    the Passengers--Mrs. L----t and her Child--Violence of Captain
+    J.--Our Chaplain turns Poet--Captain J.'s rest disturbed by the
+    Passengers--He threatens to blow them through--Sugar--Petty
+    Annoyances--A Rag Baby--Our Chaplain and his Revolver--
+    Change of Weather--Uncomfortable Condition of the Main
+    Cabin--Theft of Raisins--Ship's Stores--Gross Negligence--Great
+    Waste of Scouse      90
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  An Arbitrary Prohibition--Card Playing and Checker
+    Playing--Dancing--Treachery of Mr. Johnson--Some Passengers--A
+    Comical Character, and a Pugnacious Character--A Beautiful
+    Bird--Closing the Hatches--A Question of Jurisdiction--The Hatches
+    Re-opened--A Sudden Transformation--Neglected Duties of the
+    Chaplain--His Influence with the Captain      99
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  Head Winds--The Dusky Albatross--Tacking Ship--Fishing for
+    Birds--Amusement of the Mate and Passengers--A Poet--Fair Winds--A
+    Porpoise--A Fight in the Main Cabin--My Journal--Opinions of Mr.
+    Johnson--Meeting in the Main Cabin--Schools of Porpoises--Narrow
+    Escape from Shipwreck--An Act of Charity      107
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  Whales--Sunshine--The Pacific Ocean and Tom Moore--Wormy Bread and
+    Impure Water--A Pilot--Arrival in the Harbor of San Francisco--The
+    City--Dismantled Ships--My last Visit to the Bark--Statement and
+    Counter Statement--Angry Remonstrance--Mr. Spring and his two
+    Journals--Final Adieu to the James W. Paige      114
+
+  CALIFORNIA SCENES.
+
+  Scenes in Sacramento.      121
+
+  Cattle Stealing in Contra Costa.     123
+
+  Felling Trees in the Redwoods.      127
+
+  Solitude.      129
+
+  A Collector of Natural Curiosities.      130
+
+  A Pair of Rattlesnakes.      133
+
+  A Queer Fellow.     135
+
+  A Sandwich Island Woman and her Yankee Husband.      137
+
+  A Party.      139
+
+  Indians and Their Costumes.      145
+
+  The Yosemite Falls.     148
+
+  The Domes.      149
+
+  Farewell to the Yosemite.      151
+
+  The California Vulture.      152
+
+  My Skill at Rifle Shooting.      154
+
+  Incident at a Camp-meeting.      155
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  OFFICERS, PASSENGERS AND CREW
+
+  OF THE
+
+  BARK JAMES W. PAIGE.
+
+
+  Joseph Jackson, _Master_; Horace Atwood, _First Mate_; Dudley P.
+  Gardner, _Second Mate_; E. S. Blake, E. P. Holden, Stephen Walker, W.
+  B. Webber, Cyrus E. Gould, Michael Cashman, John Tobin, Hiram Draper,
+  Michael Feeney, M. V. Wall, W. Grant, Philip Keen, George Reynolds,
+  Tim Scannell, Ithiel Gordon, Willard Heath, Elisha Osgood, G. A.
+  Brown, J. S. Brown, Geo. L. Pierce, Leonard Stinson, S. H. Bachelder,
+  J. F. Dolliff, Joel D. Thompson, Eben Toothaker, J. S. Russell, H.
+  Whitney, Geo. A. Emery, Stephen Pierce, A. F. Johnson, William Shaw,
+  Stover Clark, J. Wentworth, G. French, W. Marshall, L. Sherman, Alfred
+  Fletcher, G. E. Morton, E. F. Starr, S. H. Sanger, James Carlow, W.
+  Spring, M. Sawtelle, D. Worster, Ivory Matthews, Rev. John Johnson,
+  S. P. Lawrence, ---- Hodsdon, William Lamson, Horace McKoy, Charles
+  Hollom, Samuel Murray, J. Lamson, Jonathan Tyler, Thomas Ladd, Noah
+  Andrews, L. Wakeman, J. Colborn, Wm. Smith, O. E. Smith, John Day,
+  Thos. Foster, John Magrath, W. Footman, J. Jackson, James Concord, T.
+  W. Dolliff, David Tinney, J. T. Bickford, B. D. Morrill, J. Montgomery,
+  Stillman Sawyer, J. C. Pullen, S. Kelley, Mrs. Draper, Mrs. Grant, Miss
+  J. Spaulding, Mrs. H. G. Brown, Mrs. S. J. Brown and Daughter, Miss M.
+  L. Brown, Mrs. J. P. Lawrence, Mrs. L----t and Daughter.
+
+
+
+
+ROUND CAPE HORN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     Description of the Bark--She sets Sail--Uncomfortable
+     Situation--Specimen of our Discomforts--A Squall--Escape from
+     a Waterspout--Approach to the Cape Verde Islands--Religious
+     Services--A School of Porpoises--A Dutch Vessel--A
+     Flying-fish--Annoyances--Bad Cooking--A Practical Joke--Tropic of
+     Cancer.
+
+
+The Bark James W. Paige of 240 tons burthen, was fitted up for a
+passenger ship in the latter part of the winter of 1852, by James
+Dunning and Joseph Nickerson of Bangor, Maine. A portion of the hold
+was made into a cabin with fourteen double berths on each side.
+Fifty-two passengers occupied this room. A small house with berths
+for fourteen passengers and a state-room for the captain was built
+over the cabin, and enclosed the companion-way or stairs leading down
+to the cabin. This cabin was called the after cabin, to distinguish
+it from the room in the hold, which was named the forward or main
+cabin; and the house was called the after house. Another house was
+constructed over the main cabin, in which lodged the mate and four
+or five passengers. The after cabin was appropriated to the ladies,
+though singularly enough, the Rev. Mr. Johnson, who, we were told,
+had been employed to officiate as our chaplain, was assigned a berth
+in this cabin, much to the annoyance of a portion of the ladies. The
+sailors occupied the forecastle. The cook's galley, a very important
+part of the ship's appointments, was placed between the two houses.
+These houses did not occupy the whole width of the deck, but a narrow
+space was left for a walk round them. There was also a small open space
+between the cook's galley and the after house, and at the ends of the
+houses.
+
+Our bark, though owned in Bangor, lay at Frankfort, twelve miles below
+the city, where she was fitted up, in consequence of the river being
+closed by the ice at that season of the year, down to the latter town.
+Many delays occurred before all our preparations were made, but at last
+all was ready, and we dropped down the river to Prospect, where we took
+on board our last passenger, and on the third day of April, 1852, we
+bade adieu to the ice and snow of Maine, and with a heavy gale of wind
+were soon driven out to sea.
+
+We were fortunate in the beginning of our voyage in having strong
+and fair gales of wind, which drove us rapidly on our course; but we
+had at the same time much wet, drizzling weather, which soon enabled
+us to discover that our ship was an old and leaky thing, and that
+our houses, though new, had been so carelessly constructed, that the
+water came in freely upon us, wetting our berths, and rendering our
+situation exceedingly uncomfortable. Add to this the fact that our
+ship, being in ballast, rolled so badly that we could not stand for a
+moment without clinging with both hands to our berths or some other
+fixture for support, and that nearly all of us were suffering severely
+with seasickness, and I think it will not be difficult to convince the
+reader that our condition was far from agreeable.
+
+The following may serve as a specimen of our discomforts: I lay in my
+berth in the after house--on the second night of our voyage,--suffering
+from intolerable nausea and equally intolerable thirst. The vessel
+rolled violently; the rain was dropping from the leaky roof into my
+face and on my bedclothes. The passengers were running to and fro in
+much confusion, and the voice of the captain was loudly heard in giving
+orders to the sailors, who were sent aloft to take in sail, for a
+squall had struck us. The trunks in our cabin were dashing from side
+to side, breaking chairs and stools and whatever else came in their
+way. The earthern ware in the lockers was slipping about and crashing
+up in a style that threatened its speedy demolition. All was noise and
+confusion. The winds whistled, howled and screamed, the sails flapped,
+the waves dashed against the sides of the vessel and over the decks,
+keeping a stream of water running back and forth as we rolled and
+pitched, and tossed over the seas. An unlucky wave, higher than the
+rest, stove a boat that hung at the davits, and added greatly to the
+confusion and apprehension which pervaded the ship. The storm, though
+with frequent lulls, continued for several days. During one night the
+trunks and chests in the main cabin were tumbled about so furiously,
+that they beat down the stairs. A barrel of pork was upset, and the
+brine, dashing across the floor, so frightened a poor fellow, who
+thought the vessel had sprung a leak, that he scrambled up into our
+house, and sat up all night.
+
+A day or two after this I heard, as I lay in my berth, an unusual
+commotion on deck, and the captain was giving orders in a loud voice
+and a quick and hurried manner. In a few moments I learned that we
+had but just barely escaped a waterspout, which had passed within
+less than the ship's length to the leeward of us. Sick as I was, I
+deeply regretted that I was not up to see it. I may never have another
+opportunity to witness such a phenomenon.
+
+_Sunday, 18th April._ Latitude 29°, 25' N. Longitude 29° 71' W. from
+Greenwich. We have reached a warmer and more comfortable climate. We
+have exchanged the cold stormy blasts, the wintry winds of Maine, for
+mild and gentle breezes and a warm sun, and we feel a sense of comfort
+in the change that is exceedingly exhilarating. I have nearly recovered
+from seasickness, from which I believe no other passenger has suffered
+so severely, but it leaves me much enfeebled. We are approaching the
+Cape Verde Islands, which we hope to see in the course of three or four
+days.
+
+We have had religious services on deck to-day. Our chaplain gave us
+a sensible written discourse, which was listened to with attention.
+We had good singing, and the services were conducted with a degree of
+propriety that would have afforded an excellent example for imitation
+by some of the congregations I have seen in our churches.
+
+Soon after the close of the services our company was enlivened by the
+sight of a school of porpoises; and Sherman, one of the passengers
+who had made several voyages, made an attempt to capture one of them.
+Taking a harpoon to which a long line was attached, he dropped into the
+chains under the bowsprit, and watched for the porpoises as they came
+plunging swiftly through the water beneath him. It required no small
+degree of skill and dexterity to strike them. There he stood looking
+intently into the water with his harpoon raised, when suddenly a group
+of the animals came within striking distance. In an instant he thrust
+his weapon into one of them, and the line was pulled in by men who were
+stationed on deck for the purpose. The fish was brought to the surface,
+but in his struggles he broke away from the harpoon and escaped, and
+in a few moments the whole school, as if warned of their danger, had
+disappeared. We have not a great variety of amusements on board our
+vessel, and such a circumstance as this serves to infuse a good deal
+of life into us. A school of porpoises, a few stray sea birds, and a
+distant sail constitute nearly all we have to relieve the monotony of
+our voyage. Up to this time we have spoken but one vessel. I lay in
+my berth one night dreaming pleasantly of friends at home, when I was
+awakened by the hoarse voice of our captain hailing a bark that was at
+that moment passing. She was a Dutch vessel homeward bound. The Dutch
+captain had some difficulty in understanding ours, and asked three
+times where we were bound, though answered each time very distinctly
+"Cal-i-for-ny."
+
+_April 19._ This morning the mate found a flying-fish. It had flown in
+during the night, probably in attempting to escape the dolphin, which
+is its greatest enemy. It was about ten inches in length, with fins
+five or six inches, which serve as wings in the short flights it makes
+over the water. Some of our men saw a large turtle floating by us. It
+had a voyage of several hundred miles to make before it could reach
+land.
+
+We are not without many annoyances, and one very serious one arises
+from the bad cooking of our food, and often from want of a sufficient
+quantity of it. Our cooks are excessively filthy, and it requires a
+strong stomach to enable one to swallow the messes they set before us.
+Many complaints have been made of this state of things to the captain,
+and to-day we have presented him with a written protest signed by every
+man in our room, but without effecting any improvement.
+
+Time passes irksomely with many of our passengers, and they often
+resort to odd expedients in order to wear away the weary hours. When
+other sources of amusement fail, they sometimes find enjoyment in
+playing practical jokes on each other. We had an instance of this sort
+of recreation to-day. A ship was seen to windward in the morning,
+and standing in the same direction with us. Some one of the party
+pronounced her a pirate. This was found to operate on the fears of one
+of the passengers, a simple, honest, credulous fellow, who believed
+others to be as honest as himself, and a grand frolic was arranged to
+come off at night at his expense. It was therefore reported that the
+pirate, though she had fallen several miles astern, had sent a boat
+to board us, and accordingly several of the men armed themselves with
+their rifles and revolvers, and prepared to defend the ship. Several
+barrels were thrown overboard in the dark to represent the piratical
+boat, and these were fired at as they floated by the ship. Then came
+a man tumbling and rolling about with terrible groans and yells,
+pretending to be wounded, and a moment after a cry went through the
+ship that the pirates were boarding us. The poor fellow for whose
+benefit all this hubbub was gotten up, was at that moment passing by my
+berth, and I heard him responding to the cry--"They _are_ boarding us,
+they _are_ boarding us! where's a handspike?" and he ran and unshipped
+a pump handle in an instant, and hastened to the spot where the
+supposed attack was made, determined to make a desperate defence. That
+he would have fought bravely had there been occasion for it, no one had
+a doubt, while it was suspected that some of his persecutors would have
+preferred retreating to fighting under any circumstances. The cracking
+of the rifles and revolvers, and the uproar all over the ship, awoke
+the captain, who got up in no very amiable mood, but he soon got into
+the humor of the frolic, and laughed as heartily as any of them.
+
+_April 21._ Our longitude to-day at noon was 23° W., latitude 23°
+50' N. We were then twenty-one miles from the Tropic of Cancer. It
+is now sunset. We have passed the tropic, and are now sailing in the
+torrid zone. It is an epoch in my life. I have talked with several of
+my fellow passengers about it, but they see nothing to interest them
+in the circumstance. This _tropic_ is not a thing to be seen--there
+is nothing tangible in it. And as for the torrid zone, they do not
+perceive any very great difference between that and the temperate zone
+we have just left. I am now sitting at the stern of the ship, enjoying
+a mild soft sea breeze and a beautiful twilight. We often have richer
+sunsets in Maine, and the twilight continues much longer; but there is
+here, while it continues, a softness and a delicate blending of the
+different tints of purple, azure and gold, which we do not always see
+in our northern latitudes. Our men are lying or sitting about the decks
+and upon the houses, many in groups engaged in conversation, some of
+them spinning long yarns, and others listening to an interesting song
+wherein is related the history of "a beautiful fair maid of high degree
+with black hair and milk white cheeks, and her galliant lovyer," while
+here and there may be seen one quietly communing with his own thoughts,
+which the friends he has left three thousand miles distant suggest to
+him.
+
+The ladies at the beginning of the voyage were confined a large portion
+of the time to their cabin by sickness. But since their recovery they
+spend many hours on deck every fair day; and as they are under the
+necessity of going through our room in passing to and from their cabin,
+we are in a fair way of becoming acquainted with them.
+
+_April 22._ We are now but three hundred and fifty miles distant from
+the coast of Africa, and about five hundred miles north of the Cape
+Verde Islands. We have sailed sharp on the wind during several days,
+hoping each day to fall in with the north-east trade-winds that are
+to waft us to the coast of South America. But we have not been so
+fortunate as to find the trades, and this morning we have but little
+wind in any direction. The sea, though rolling in long undulations, is
+very smooth, and the sails are flapping idly against the masts.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Consultations about Cape Verde Islands--Flying-fish--English
+     Steamer--Tropical Showers--Disappointment--Capture of a
+     Porpoise--May-Day at Sea--An English Bark--Letters for
+     Home--Another Bark--Nautical Ceremonies--An Aquatic Bird--Crossing
+     the Equator--Squalls--A Portuguese Brig--Captain J. engages
+     to stop at Rio Janeiro--Land Seen--Cape Frio--Approach to Rio
+     Janeiro--Beautiful Scenery--Disappointment.
+
+
+I have had several consultations with the captain on the subject of
+touching at the Cape Verde Islands; and as his chief objection, aside
+from one or two days' loss of time, is the port charges, the passengers
+have obviated that objection by subscribing an amount much greater than
+will be necessary to pay those charges, besides engaging to assist
+in getting some pure water on board, of which we are in great want.
+I am very desirous of seeing something, however small, of a tropical
+country, and of the trees, birds, and other productions of a tropical
+climate; and this may be my only opportunity. Above all I long for a
+short respite, if only for a day, from this confinement to the vessel,
+and for a little exercise upon the land before we continue our long
+voyage to the coast of South America.
+
+_April 24._ Saw the flight of a school of flying-fish. They rush
+through the air with great rapidity, and generally--those that I have
+seen,--against the wind. They look very prettily as they skim over the
+water a little above its surface, and follow the undulations of the
+waves a distance varying from five to twenty rods. Towards night a
+large English steamer with four masts and all sails set, was seen on
+our starboard bow, and continued in sight nearly two hours.
+
+This afternoon we had a slight specimen of a tropical shower. Some dark
+clouds suddenly arose, and before the heavens were half covered, they
+broke upon us in a heavy shower accompanied by thunder, that drove us
+all under shelter. It passed away however as quickly as it arose.
+
+We had this day been sailing with a fair breeze, and hoped by to-morrow
+to be anchored in one of the harbors of the Cape Verde Islands. We
+were much elated at the prospect, and it had been the chief topic of
+conversation for two or three days. Judge then of my disappointment
+when I learned at night that the captain had ordered the helmsman to
+put the bark off to the south-west, the direction of the islands being
+south. He had determined to avoid the islands, and we had no other
+alternative but to submit. After sailing south-west about four hours in
+order to give the islands a wide berth, our course was again changed
+to the south. We turned into our berths with no very amiable feeling
+towards Capt. J., who, we thought, manifested very little regard for
+the welfare or comfort of his passengers.
+
+_Sunday, April 25._ We are passing the Cape Verde Islands without
+even the gratification of looking at them. But we have now got the
+trade-wind in earnest, and are driving before it at the rate of ten
+or eleven knots. We have seen several schools of flying-fish to-day,
+and two of them have been picked up on the deck by the sailors. This
+afternoon a large school of porpoises came playing round the ship,
+and one of them was struck with the harpoon by Sherman, our sailor
+passenger, and secured. It was about five feet long, and weighed,
+probably, two hundred pounds.
+
+_Monday, April 26._ Some portions of the porpoise killed yesterday
+were served up to-day for dinner. The liver was said to be very good,
+resembling that of a cow; but the flesh, though relished by some of the
+passengers, was black, and had rather a strong flavor. I did not taste
+of either of them.
+
+_Saturday, May 1._ May-day at sea. We rose as usual this morning, took
+our breakfast, and talked of May-day at home, and of the friends we had
+left there, and seeing in fancy the youthful portion of them setting
+out on a shivering ramble in pursuit of a few flowers or leaves through
+the mud and snow, while we strove to shelter ourselves from the heat of
+a tropical sun under an awning of a large sail, which we raised over
+the after house, where we sat, lay or walked, and read, talked and
+sung, during the day. Towards evening I sat for an hour--and it is an
+indolent pleasure I often indulge in--observing the sky and the clouds,
+and watching their slow and sometimes almost imperceptible changes
+of shape and hue, and in comparing them with the sunset skies of our
+northern climes, which, if wanting something of the ethereal softness
+of this, are more glowing, more brilliant, and more decidedly beautiful.
+
+_Sunday, May 2._ This morning a sail was seen on our larboard tack,
+but the wind being light, we did not speak her till night. We watched
+her till after sunset, when her mate boarded us, and reported her to
+be an English bark bound for Liverpool. We had been writing letters
+all day, hoping this vessel would prove to be an American homeward
+bound. We were somewhat disappointed, but as we might not soon have an
+opportunity of sending more directly, we decided to send our package,
+containing forty-five letters, by the bark to England, thence to be
+forwarded by steamer to America.
+
+_Monday, May 3._ Spoke another bark, the Fanny Major, for which I had
+prepared another letter, but she was found to be outward-bound, from
+New-York to the same port with us, and having on board sixty-five
+passengers. Our vessel proved to be the best sailor. We had been
+sailing on different tacks, and she was half a mile astern of us, when
+our captain backed sail and let her come up. Just at this time a squall
+arose, and she soon ranged along-side, and in a few minutes passed by
+us. The captains hailed each other through their speaking-trumpets,
+asking what port they sailed from, where bound, how long out, what
+ports they intended to touch at, what was the longitude by the
+reckoning of each, &c. After the bark had passed us we set our sails,
+and soon overhauled her. The captains had a few more words, when the
+passengers and crew of the New-Yorker gave us three hearty cheers,
+which we answered with an equal number, then three more from the
+New-Yorker answered by one from us, and our military band, consisting
+of a drum and a fife, set up a lively air, when we speedily shot by,
+and left her to follow in our wake.
+
+At night we had a visit from a large aquatic bird. After flying around
+the ship for some time, she alighted on the jib-boom, and was captured
+by Sherman. I was very desirous of preserving the skin of this bird,
+which differed from any of those described by Audubon or Wilson, and
+was probably not a visitor to the United States; but our captain, who
+is a man of contracted views, and is deeply tinctured with a sailor's
+whims and superstitions, ordered it to be set at liberty under the
+pretense of sympathy.
+
+_Tuesday, May 4._ We have for a week past been drifting,--I can hardly
+say sailing, for the winds have been light, and we have made but
+little progress,--towards the Equator, and to-day we have crossed that
+important geographical line, and passed into another hemisphere. The
+event has been celebrated with a good deal of hilarity and nonsense.
+Old Neptune appeared on board rigged out with an immense wig of
+Manilla cordage, a grotesque mask, red flannel drawers, and a buffalo
+coat, and holding the captain's speaking-trumpet in his hand. He was
+accompanied by his wife, personated by a thin, slender and active
+fellow, arrayed in a long gown and a straw bonnet. They amused us with
+a dance to the music of a fiddle, and in return they were treated with
+some brandy, of which they partook with great gusto. Neptune enquired
+into the affairs of the ship, cautioned the stewards and cooks to do
+their duty, gave some wholesome advice to the officers, to whom he was
+formally introduced, cracked a good many jokes upon the passengers,
+and disappeared. The frolic went off with great good humor among all
+parties.
+
+_Wednesday, May 12._ We have had many squalls accompanied with rain for
+several days past. Last night a pretty heavy one struck us, sending
+down a torrent of rain, which leaked into our berths and houses. Many
+of us got well drenched. Feeling rather uncomfortable from the wet,
+I arose and stood up by the side of my berth, holding on to it for
+support, while the ship rolled violently. But I soon grew tired of
+this. So feeling over my bed in the dark, and finding a comparatively
+dry place at the foot of it, I changed my pillow to that end, and
+turned in again. Lulled to rest by the howling of the wind, the dashing
+of the seas, the rushing of several pailfuls of water over the floor
+of our room, the hoarse orders of the captain and the answers of the
+sailors, I slept till morning.
+
+_Friday, May 14._ Spoke a Portuguese brig bound to Rio Janeiro. Her
+decks were crowded with men and women migrating to the New World. I
+thought there must have been more than a hundred of them in a vessel
+not more than two-thirds as large as ours.
+
+_Saturday, May 15._ We are now distant about four hundred miles from
+Rio Janeiro, and have strong hopes that we shall touch there, though
+it was the original intention of Captain Jackson to stop at Saint
+Catherine's, nearly three hundred miles further south. He is strongly
+prejudiced against Rio, having lost a brother and three men, besides
+being dangerously ill himself of yellow fever contracted there on a
+former visit. Then the port charges are higher at Rio than at St.
+Catherine's. This objection, however, the passengers propose to obviate
+by paying fifty dollars; and so the captain engages to put in to Rio if
+he can ascertain from outward-bound vessels that the place is free from
+yellow fever. And none of us wish to go there if it is not, though our
+eagerness to step on land once more would induce many of us to incur
+some little risk. St. Catherine's is a small island, containing only a
+few unimportant villages and towns; and it is said, that in consequence
+of the riotous conduct of many Americans who have put in there, the
+authorities prohibit a greater number than eight persons landing from
+any vessel at one time. This would be an uncomfortable, not to say
+insupportable, state of things for a company of eighty-eight men, women
+and children, weary of the voyage, and crazy to set foot again on land.
+
+_Wednesday, May 19._ This is the forty-sixth day of our voyage, during
+forty-five of which we have not seen land. To-day the cry of land has
+resounded through the ship, with not quite the joy and enthusiasm to
+us, perhaps, that the same words gave to Columbus and his companions
+on the discovery of America, but certainly with a good deal of
+satisfaction. I have just seen it, two hills on Cape Frio, which we
+are fast approaching. This cape is sixty miles from Rio, where we hope
+to arrive early to-morrow, though we are still in great suspense and
+uncertainty about stopping there at all.
+
+_Thursday, May 20._ We passed Cape Frio in the night, and are now,
+early in the morning, approaching the harbor of Rio. We are now but a
+few miles distant from the entrance to the harbor. There it lies before
+us. There lie the hills along the coast in almost every variety of
+form, some with a gradual rise to their summits, others bold and almost
+perpendicular; some smooth and rounded, others abrupt and jagged, and
+still others conical, and sharply pointed. There, in the distance, are
+the mountains, between which and us is the city, towards which all our
+thoughts, wishes and desires so anxiously tend. There lies a beach,
+upon which the surf is breaking in long, white swells; and there are
+the trees upon the sides and summits of the hills. What a world of new
+and curious objects we are about to behold! What a variety of trees and
+other plants and flowers and fruits! What grand and beautiful scenery!
+and what an endless variety of curiosities, natural and artificial, in
+this, to us, new city in a new world!
+
+But are we not to be disappointed at last? Even now, when we are almost
+within view of the city, circumstances begin to wear a suspicious
+aspect. No vessel is to be seen coming from the harbor, from which we
+can obtain information with regard to the health of the city, and our
+captain keeps a respectful distance from the coast, as though he feared
+to meet one. True, he keeps up a show of going in, by keeping off and
+on, but he begins to talk of losing his labor and time, and we perceive
+that he has already dropped half a dozen miles to the leeward of the
+harbor. We watch his every motion, and listen to every word with deep
+anxiety. But he does not keep us long in suspense. A hurried breakfast,
+of which I did not partake, is scarcely passed, when the order is
+given, "square away the yards," and in an instant all our visions of
+Rio Janeiro have vanished. We bid farewell to the city without seeing
+it, and to the tropics, without setting foot on their lands, and with
+but one indistinct glimpse of the beautiful scenery within their bounds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     A Mistake Discovered and Corrected--Ill
+     Health--Scenery of the Coast and Harbor of Rio
+     Janeiro--We cast Anchor--Going Ashore--Rambles in
+     the City--Fountains--Markets--Parrots--Hammer-headed
+     Sharks--Monkeys--Slaves--Tropical Trees--Visit to a Hotel--English
+     Gentlemen--Public Gardens.
+
+
+_One o'clock P.M._ We had just settled down into a sullen resignation
+to our fate, and some of the passengers had been trying to amuse
+themselves by making unsuccessful shots at the large sea birds that
+were flying around us, when a discovery was made which caused great
+excitement among us, and raised our spirits to a high degree. We had
+floated along several hours at a short distance from the coast, when
+one of the passengers who had been in Rio saw that we were now off
+the entrance to the harbor, and that the captain was wrong in the
+morning. Captain J., who was in his berth, was called immediately,
+and acknowledged his mistake. He then engaged again to go in on the
+conditions previously stipulated. So the ship is turned towards the
+harbor, where we shall probably arrive in the evening. The money has
+been collected and paid over. I cannot, however, but feel very anxious
+as to the event. My health has been seriously declining for several
+weeks, and my fellow-passengers have more than once discussed the
+probability of my becoming food for the fishes before the ship arrives
+at the end of her long voyage. I feel that I must have a short respite
+on shore or die. But I will not croak about it. We shall know the worst
+to-morrow. Let me go out and enjoy the splendid scenery that lies
+before us.
+
+And such scenery! I am gazing upon it with sensations as indescribable
+as the scenery itself. Never before have I so felt the utter impotency
+of language. I might say it is beautiful, grand, magnificent, rich
+beyond any thing I ever saw or imagined. I might lavish upon it every
+epithet which my delighted senses could suggest, but no words that
+I can command can, by any possibility, convey the least idea of the
+strangely enchanting beauty of the harbor we are entering. I have
+seated myself upon the bowsprit, and as we sail slowly in impelled
+by a gentle breeze, I have ample opportunity to feast my eyes on the
+beautiful scene. Let me give you a short prosaic account of it. If I
+fail to convey to the reader the impression which the scene makes on
+me, I may at least fix it the more indelibly on my own mind.
+
+An ocean of hills and mountains presents itself on either side of
+the bay. Here at the entrance on the left, rises an immense rock in
+the form of a sugar-loaf, to the height, perhaps, of six hundred or
+eight hundred feet. Beyond, in close proximity, are a hundred other
+hills, many of them conical, some running up into sharp pinnacles,
+some nearly bare of vegetation, and others less steep covered to their
+summits with a dense foliage. And there is one towering above the rest,
+presenting to the view a black and perpendicular front, and a pinnacle
+scarcely larger than the spire of a church. The opposite side of the
+harbor presents nearly the same characteristic scenery, sharp, conical
+hills and rocks rising abruptly from the bay, succeeded by other hills
+thickly planted behind and beyond them. The shores of the bay are
+formed into many broad, circular indentations, fringed with beaches of
+fine white sand. A large fort mounting a hundred guns, and commanding
+the entrance to the harbor, stands on a projecting rock overlooked
+by a mountain from the summit of which--though I know nothing of
+the science of fortifications--I fancy that a small battery might be
+planted that would quickly demolish it. A smaller fort or battery
+stands opposite on a small island near the sugar-loaf. Other forts
+defend the inner portions of the harbor. Many fine buildings stand upon
+the left shore at the foot of the hills, and form almost a continuous
+street for several miles to the city. Far in the distance, and but
+dimly descried, are the Brazilian Mountains. Though greatly superior in
+height to the hills on the coast, the same peculiarities of cones and
+pinnacles characterize them.
+
+We passed the fort, and dropped anchor at a distance of two miles from
+the city. Near us lay the North America, a large ship from New York
+bound for California with nearly five hundred passengers. They gave us
+twice three hearty cheers, which we answered in the usual manner.
+
+Immediately on coming to anchor, we were visited by a health officer
+and a custom-house officer, each of whom was dispatched with a very few
+words. Captain Jackson then took a boat manned by two sailors, and went
+ashore, and we made every preparation for an early visit in the morning.
+
+_Friday, May 21._ About twenty boats were along-side this morning
+manned by whites and blacks, masters and slaves, all clamorous for
+passengers. They were unanimous in asking twenty-five cents for a
+passage, which, though not very exorbitant, they soon reduced to ten
+cents, and we speedily filled their boats.
+
+The first thing that attracted my attention as we neared the shore, was
+the singular appearance of the roofs of many of the buildings, which
+I ascertained were covered with tiles. As few of my readers have ever
+seen a roof covered in this manner, I am induced to describe it. The
+tiles are pieces of pottery in the form of half a tube seven or eight
+inches in diameter, half or three-quarters of an inch thick, and about
+two feet long. They are unglazed, and burnt as hard as our pottery.
+They are supported by a rough frame-work of poles, and laid in two
+courses, the under course forming gutters to carry off the rain, which
+is turned into them by the upper course, each upper tile being turned
+over the edges of two of the under ones. The roof projects sixteen or
+eighteen inches over the street, and the under side of the projections
+or eaves is generally painted red. These roofs, of course, answer a
+good purpose here, but in New England, where boys throw stones, they
+would not last a fortnight. Nor would they, in my opinion, endure the
+frosts of our winters for a single month.
+
+We landed and proceeded immediately to a restaurant, where we refreshed
+ourselves with a cup of coffee and a plate of toast, and then commenced
+our rambles over the city. I soon found myself separated from my
+companions and proceeded alone. I crossed a large square, in which
+stood a stone fountain built in the form of a temple, from whose sides
+the water fell into basins beneath. These fountains, though built in
+different styles, I found in great numbers throughout the city. They
+are supplied by an aqueduct.
+
+Passing through a street containing several handsome churches and
+other public buildings, I found myself in the market. This, I believe,
+was square, surrounded by high walls against which within were shops
+or stalls containing a great variety of articles of food, vegetable
+and animal. The square was also crossed by several streets or walks
+with stalls on each side of them. A fountain with a very large basin
+occupied the center. My first search was for fruits. I found oranges
+and bananas in abundance, and these with cocoa-nuts constitute all
+the market affords at this season of the year. There were neither
+watermelons nor musk-melons, no apples, nor pears, nor peaches, no
+plums of any description, nor a berry of any sort. There were no dead
+meats to be found in this market. Beef was sold in another part of the
+city. Live pigs had their appropriate stalls, and chickens, turkeys,
+and several varieties of ducks and of doves, besides many singing
+birds, were kept in coarse cages or chained by the leg. Parrots were
+abundant, and there was a large and exceedingly beautiful bird, whose
+name I did not know; but I was rather desirous of buying one for the
+purpose of preserving the skin. I asked the price. It was thirty
+milreas--about sixteen or seventeen dollars. I did not purchase.
+There was a great variety of fish, some very beautiful, and others
+the most disgusting specimens I ever beheld. Among them were several
+hammer-headed sharks, a curious fish from three to five feet long,
+with a head twelve or fifteen inches long, attached to the body like a
+hammer to the handle. An eye is placed at each extremity of the hammer,
+but the mouth is below it in the body of the fish. There were monkeys
+enough to make up a menagerie, the greater part of them being of one
+species with long, prehensile tails. In the center of the square,
+surrounding the fountain, was a variety of vegetables sold by slaves,
+male and female, who kept such continual talking, laughing and singing
+as I never heard before. It seemed as though they were enjoying a
+holiday, and were in their happiest humor.
+
+I did not stop long in the market, but continuing my walk, I threaded
+several narrow streets and passages to the summit of a hill, where
+I found a gate opening into grounds belonging to a large hotel. I
+entered, and for the first time found myself in the shade of tropical
+trees. I was delighted with the scene. Every tree, shrub, vine, and
+flower, were new to me. I knew not the name of a single plant. The
+sun was beating down intensely, and I was glad to seat myself upon an
+embankment under the shade of a row of large trees. Several little
+birds were singing in the branches, only one of which I knew, a wren,
+though of a different species from any of ours, and smaller, but
+possessing the same lively, restless, noisy characteristics. A long
+shaded walk led to the hotel. I had not sat there long when I saw a
+company of my fellow-passengers approaching. They had just left the
+hotel, but giving me a gentle hint to treat them, they returned to
+the house, and I followed. We entered at the rear of the house and we
+passed through to the front, which afforded a splendid view of the
+harbor. A little garden on the very verge of the steep hill was filled
+with a variety of strange flowers and plants, and an arbor with seats
+occupied one end of it. Standing here, one could look upon the beach
+at the foot of the hill, and listen to the roar of the waves as they
+rolled over the hard white sand. My companions having become pretty
+mellow, sung two or three of their sentimental songs, and departed,
+leaving me to enjoy a very pleasant interview with two young English
+gentlemen, who gave me some information respecting the city, and
+advised me to visit the Botanical Garden, situated at a distance of six
+or eight miles in the country.
+
+In the afternoon I walked to the Public Garden. This is a large garden,
+surrounded by a high stone wall, and laid out in triangular plats,
+each filled with beautiful trees and shrubs, and protected by an iron
+fence. The ground was perfectly level and the walks broad and smooth.
+At one extremity were two small ponds bordered by rough stones, and
+surrounded with benches of hewn granite. From the center of each pond
+arose a triangular column of hewn stone, consisting of a pedestal
+about eighty feet broad and as many high, and a shaft about forty feet
+high terminating in a sharp point; and from the sides of the pedestals
+streams of water issued into the basins or ponds. A broad walk passes
+between these fountains, at the extremity of which is an ornamented
+stone basin elevated several feet above the ground. From the end of
+this basin rises a mound of rough stones piled up against a very
+handsome wall, and covered with a variety of cactuses and other plants.
+At the foot of the mound two enormous alligators lie entwined, from
+whose gaping mouths, streams of water flow into the basin. A flight of
+stone steps ascend from each side of the fountain to a terrace thirty
+feet broad, and extending the width of the garden. This terrace is
+paved with tessellated marble, and protected by parapet walls, whose
+sides are covered with porcelain. Two octagonal buildings stand at
+the extremities of the terrace, each angle of which is crowned with a
+porcelain vase containing plants, as is also every post in the parapet
+walls. The waves of the bay dash against the base of the terrace, and
+their roar is heard in the garden.
+
+I found but few people here, and no one who could talk with me. There
+were arbors shaded with vines and trees, and supplied with stone seats
+and tables, where I sat and made my memoranda. I returned to the
+landing by different streets from those through which I came, seeing
+many new things--every thing I have seen here is new and strange--and
+am heartily gratified with my first day in Rio. I found several of
+the passengers ready to return on board the bark, where we passed the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Visit to the Botanical Garden--Description of the Garden--Dinner
+     at the Hotel--Third Visit to the City--Impudence of the First
+     Mate--Village of San Domingo--A Walk in the Country--Attacked
+     by Dogs--Beautiful Plantations--Civility of a Planter--Elegant
+     Mansion and Grounds--A Retreat--A Fine Road--Return to the
+     Ship--Supply of Fruit--The North America--Mr. Kent, our Consul.
+
+
+_Saturday, May 22._ Our friends, the boatmen, were out betimes, and
+took us to the city early in the morning. We had arranged a large party
+of ladies and gentlemen to visit the Botanical Garden, of which we had
+heard many glowing accounts besides those given me by the young English
+gentlemen yesterday. To convey our party we hired three carriages,
+each drawn by two mules, and driven by a man who spoke a little, a
+very little English, and drove through the streets near the shore of
+the bay for a distance of three miles or more, when we turned into the
+country and followed a road that wound around the base of several hills
+and mountains, one of which I have already spoken of as seen from the
+bark. It ran up into a sharp, perpendicular peak, as near as I could
+judge about fifteen hundred feet high. And this mountain I am told is
+often ascended by tourists, who reach its highest point on horseback.
+The scenery through which we passed was truly magnificent, and many of
+the houses and gardens were rich and beautiful. We stopped at a hotel
+near the garden, whence we walked to the garden accompanied by a very
+agreeable young man, a Hungarian, who spoke pretty good English, and
+who made himself very useful in giving us the English names of many
+of the trees and shrubs. The first object that met our view--and
+to me it was one of the greatest attractions of the garden--was two
+rows of palm trees planted on the edges of a broad and elevated walk,
+passing through the center of the garden. The trunks of these palms
+were of a stone gray or ash color, and showed a slight circular ridge
+or mark at intervals of three or four inches, where they had been
+encircled by the footstalks of leaves, which had fallen off as the
+trees increased in height. They were perfectly round, and symmetrical,
+and to my inexperienced eye they seemed to have been turned in a lathe,
+or chiseled by a sculptor. They rose to the height of thirty or forty
+feet, and were crowned with a great tuft of long leaves. The effect on
+looking through this long vista of trees was peculiar and striking, and
+I could scarcely resist the impression that they were the work of art,
+pillars of stone crowned with artificial foliage. Near this walk we saw
+several plats of the China tea-plant. I did not learn any thing as to
+its productiveness.
+
+We passed rapidly through a great many walks, and saw groves of a
+large variety of trees, in all which I felt a peculiar interest,
+such as the cinnamon, nutmeg, sage, camphor, bread-fruit, tamarind,
+cocoa-nut, orange, lemon and banyan trees, and thickets of bamboo and
+swamps of bananas, besides a multitude of beautiful trees, shrubs and
+flowers, whose names we did not learn. In the center of the garden, and
+dividing the palm-tree walk, which I have described, into two equal
+parts, is a fine fountain bordered with and surrounded by a profusion
+of rich flowers. A little farther on we found a pretty brook running
+over a hard bed of sand and thickly shaded with bananas. It was just
+sequestered and wild enough to remind me of home and the many brooks
+of pure water, in which I had so often slaked my thirst in my frequent
+rambles in the wild woods of Maine. I was glad to find something, if
+only a brook, in this world of novelties, that might, perhaps, have its
+counterpart in my own country. But more than this, there was a little
+grove of cedars, which, we were told, had been imported from the United
+States.
+
+I was deeply interested in the bread-fruit tree with its large half
+grown fruit, and its great, shining, deep green leaves. It has had a
+sort of romantic attraction for me ever since I read of it in early
+childhood in the voyages of Captain Cook. The tamarind also is very
+attractive, and with its broad spreading branches and brilliant
+foliage, is one of the most beautiful trees within the tropics. The
+banana is an annual plant, growing to the height of twelve or fifteen
+feet, with immensely long leaves from eighteen inches to two feet wide.
+It bears an immense cluster of fruit, sometimes several hundreds in
+number, each about six inches long. The pulp of the banana is covered
+with a thick skin, which is easily detached. I do not know what other
+fruit to compare it with. I found it of a very pleasant flavor when
+eaten with sugar and wine, as we eat musk-melons, though its flavor is
+far inferior to that of the musk-melon.
+
+After satisfying our curiosity with the beauties of the garden, we
+returned to the hotel in season for dinner. And as I shall, in all
+probability, never partake of another Brazilian dinner, I am tempted
+to give a short account of this. The company at the table consisted
+solely of our own party, and the young Hungarian. We sat down to a long
+table not less than six feet wide, which we found a very inconvenient
+width. There were sixteen or seventeen of us. We had a small turkey
+roasted with the feet, but without stuffing; neat's tongue fried in
+oil or something else that rendered it extremely unpalatable; fried
+ham and eggs, strong and unpleasant; fried fish, green peas, utterly
+tasteless; potatoes, very small and fried in oil, and lettuce. The food
+was placed on the table, and we were left to help ourselves, which
+the great width of the table rendered very inconvenient. The carving
+of the turkey devolved upon me. The gentlemen watched the operation
+with deep interest, and had the mortification of seeing the whole of
+it distributed among the ladies. Turkey being out of the question with
+them, they turned their attention to the other dishes, of which they
+partook with such appetites as might be expected after a six weeks'
+voyage at sea. The first and principal course was speedily disposed of.
+The table was cleared away, and then came the second course or dessert,
+which consisted of two small omelets or tarts, which I thought were
+very good; two small loaves of sponge cake, ditto; and bananas, oranges
+and walnuts, of all which we left not a vestige.
+
+The dinner passed off very pleasantly, and the bill was settled with
+some little trouble, in which we had to call in the assistance of our
+friend, the Hungarian, as none of us understood Portuguese, and the
+landlord was equally ignorant of English. Each article was charged
+separately, and the long list of items and their prices required a
+pretty familiar acquaintance with compound addition and with Brazilian
+currency, to bring the sum to a satisfactory footing. The excursion
+proved to be one of great enjoyment to us, and we returned to the city
+and to the ship, highly delighted with the day's adventure.
+
+_May 23._ We had been notified that a missionary from the city would
+preach on board our ship to-day, and the ladies and some of the
+gentlemen stopped to hear him. But many of us could not resist the
+inclination to spend on shore the very short time of our stay at Rio,
+and we resolved to take an early start for the city. As we were about
+leaving the ship, the first mate, whose name is Atwood, an ignorant,
+uncouth sailor, undertook to stop us by a very winning exhortation,
+which he wound up by calling us a damned pack of fellows with no more
+manners than the heathen. I replied that Mr. Atwood was the last man in
+the world to whom I should go to learn good manners, and then went on
+board the boat.
+
+We found, as we expected, the stores open in the city, and business
+transacted as it is in all Catholic countries on the Sabbath. I went
+into several churches, where I found but few worshipers, but they were
+continually coming and going, and their individual devotions occupied
+but a small portion of time. Some of the passengers found amusement
+in a cock fight. Others went to the public garden, where they found
+a great concourse of people, that being a place of much resort on
+Sundays. As I had resolved to take a walk into the country on the
+opposite side of the harbor, I invited two young men, T. Ladd and B.
+D. Morrill, to accompany me. We crossed the bay in a steam ferry-boat
+to the village of San Domingo This village is built around one of
+the indentations, which form a prominent feature in this harbor. The
+principal street stretches more than a mile in a circular form around
+the bay, and is built upon only one side, the houses all overlooking
+the water, which washes a broad beach of fine white sand. Double rows
+of trees are planted on the street next the beach, and thickly planted
+trees and shrubbery form a deep shade around each dwelling.
+
+We took one of the principal roads, and walked into the country, going
+wherever curiosity or fancy directed, a hundred roads diverging to the
+right and left as we advanced. We passed many houses and plantations
+as we wound around the hills, and we stopped frequently to rest us and
+to examine the plants and the gardens, that invited our notice. At one
+place we saw a gang of slaves drilling into a quarry on the side of
+a hill for the purpose of procuring stone for building. The sun was
+beating down upon the rock with great intensity, and none but those
+half naked Africans could have endured the heat. Their shining backs
+glistened in the sun, like polished ebony. At another place we saw two
+slaves chained together, and digging in the earth in that condition.
+They had, perhaps, been guilty of insubordination or some other crime
+against their lawful masters!
+
+Our first attempt to visit a plantation was unsuccessful. It was a
+pretty place, the house was a new and handsome one, the grounds looked
+inviting, and the gate was open. We entered, but had proceeded only
+a few steps when we were met by two large dogs destitute of hair
+but not of teeth, who not only disputed our further progress, but
+seemed disposed to take vengeance on us for our intrusion. We were
+not inclined to parley with them, but commenced an immediate retreat,
+when a slave, who happened to be near, came forward and called off the
+dogs. At the same moment the master of the house, a surly looking old
+fellow, hearing the uproar, came out from the house, and instead of
+inviting us in like a gentleman, as he was in duty bound, only directed
+us by signs to another house, where we thought he intended to intimate,
+we should meet with a more hospitable reception. And in this he was
+right. A large and elegant mansion stood near the road. The gate was
+open, and we passed through, though rather hesitatingly. A negro met
+us with many smiles, conducted us over the grounds, broke off as many
+oranges from the branches of the trees as we wanted to eat and carry
+away, permitted me to cut an orange twig for a walking-stick, and
+showed us half a dozen very fine cows, which my companions pronounced
+fully equal to, and very much resembling, our best cows in Maine. A
+few small coins rewarded his civility, and we continued our walk. A
+little distance further brought us to a small village. We sat down to
+rest us for a few minutes upon some stone steps in front of a store
+connected with a handsome dwelling-house. As we were about to continue
+our rambles we met a gentleman at the gateway, who saluted us in
+English, and invited us to sit in the shade. He talked with us of a
+hundred things in a few minutes. He had once resided in Virginia, and
+expressed himself in terms of high admiration of the government of
+the United States, and of unqualified disgust of the Roman Catholic
+religion, which was the bane of Brazil. He invited us to walk over his
+grounds, and as we declined eating oranges, he directed a slave to cut
+us some stalks of sugar-cane, the juice of which is very refreshing to
+a thirsty traveler. He directed our attention to a little naked "nigger
+baby," which lay sprawled out upon the ground, and which he said he was
+raising with no other motive than that of pure charity, for the animal
+would not half repay the cost of rearing it. Thanking him for his
+hospitality, we took leave, when he gave us a hearty shake of the hand,
+and wished us a successful voyage.
+
+A little further on we saw an elegant mansion situated about half way
+up the side of a steep hill, and overlooking a considerable extent
+of country. It was a delightful situation, and its owner was the
+proprietor of a coffee plantation on the other side of the road and in
+front of his house. A number of blacks were at this time occupied in
+preparing the coffee for market.
+
+The gateway to the grounds consisted of a square building perhaps
+twenty feet high. I opened the gate and went in. A walk leading to the
+house wound to the right, through thickets of trees up the acclivity,
+in the steepest portions of which were placed flights of broad stone
+steps. Another walk diverged to the left, and was soon lost to the
+view in groves of oranges, lemons, tamarinds, and other tropical trees.
+Many new and beautiful plants were to be seen around the house, and
+every thing displayed beauty, elegance, and taste. I looked round for a
+few moments, but seeing no one on the grounds, I left the place.
+
+On our return we took another road, and passed many places whose
+scenery deeply interested us. At one plantation we met, as usual,
+a smiling slave, who conducted us through the walks of a beautiful
+garden. Another slave, a female, soon appeared with a long stick
+prepared at one end like a fork to break oranges from the branches;
+and we were getting along very pleasantly, walking in the shade of
+orange, bread-fruit, tamarind, and other trees, many of which we did
+not know, when suddenly we saw a large party of blacks, male and
+female, in one of the distant walks, and saw a great commotion among
+them. My curiosity was excited to see the frolic, which I thought might
+have been an African dance or a fandango. But Morrill, who perceived a
+strong smell of rum in the breath of our dark cicerone, and thinking
+the distant scene bore a greater resemblance to an Irish riot, beat
+a precipitate retreat, and I followed, sorry to lose so good an
+opportunity for learning something of the amusements of those slaves.
+
+Continuing our walk, we came to the bay, where we found a new road
+winding in one place around the base of huge, perpendicular precipices,
+from every interstice of which hung a variety of cactuses, vines and
+shrubs, while lofty palms threw up their leaf-crowned shafts from the
+earth below.
+
+The road we had found was new, hard, perfectly smooth, and was
+decidedly the best highway I ever saw. It led direct to the town of
+San Domingo, almost a mile distant from the point at which we had
+landed, and where we speedily arrived. Recrossing the bay, we purchased
+a few necessaries at Rio, and returned to the ship. We found our bark
+the scene of much noise and confusion, arising from the drunkenness
+of several of the passengers, who had just returned, having spent the
+day in drinking on shore. One man had become so outrageously violent
+and crazy, that the second mate, who had command of the ship at this
+time,--the captain and first mate being both absent,--was obliged to
+secure him by tying his hands.
+
+_May 24._ We had laid in many things necessary for our comfort during
+the continuance of our voyage, among which were a large lot of oranges,
+and some bananas and cocoa-nuts. This morning, just as we were about
+to sail, two boats laden with oranges came along-side the ship, and
+though we thought we had a pretty good supply of fruit, we bought both
+cargoes, amounting to about two thousand. They cost us from forty to
+sixty cents a hundred.
+
+The North America left the harbor two days before us. We did not visit
+her though she lay at anchor almost within speaking distance of us.
+A regulation of the port prohibits the passengers and crews passing
+from one ship to another. It may have been a fortunate regulation for
+us, for we had many reports of the yellow fever being in the ship.
+This disease had raged very fatally in the city, but was beginning to
+subside, though we were told it was still rife.
+
+Mr. Kent, our consul at Rio at this time, had removed with his family
+into the country, where he found a more salubrious climate than the
+city afforded. This was a disappointment to several of the passengers,
+who were personally acquainted with him, and had anticipated much
+pleasure in meeting him in this distant land. Mr. Kent is said to be
+very popular at Rio, and the interest he takes in the oppressed seamen,
+and the kindness and humanity he manifests towards them, have done him
+much credit.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     Weigh Anchor--Civility of People of Rio--Temperance--An
+     Altercation--Cold Weather--Cape Pigeons--Large Bird--Our Kitchen
+     Establishment--Stewards and Cooks--Scouse--Inspection of Cooks'
+     Galley--A Joke--A Squall--An Altercation--Captain J. and Mrs.
+     L----t--Cape Pigeons--Oranges.
+
+
+We did not weigh anchor until 2 P.M. As we were beating out
+of the harbor, we met the Portuguese brig, which we had spoken on
+the fourteenth instant, coming in. After getting out and passing the
+lighthouse and the islands, we squared away and stood on our course
+with a fair and moderate breeze.
+
+We were now much improved in health, and all the hardships, privations,
+annoyances, and disappointments of the former part of our voyage were
+forgotten. We were now supplied with a rich fund of new and interesting
+subjects for conversation, we looked forward to a speedy and prosperous
+passage round Cape Horn, and we were in the very best of spirits. We
+had seen Rio Janeiro.
+
+I had, as the reader may well suppose, but slight opportunity to
+acquire a knowledge of the institutions of the country, or the
+manners and customs of its inhabitants during my very short stay in
+Rio, and will not insult the reader with a long essay on subjects of
+which I know nothing. But I noticed a few traits in their character,
+with which I was much pleased. I found them very kind, polite and
+hospitable. In all my walks through the city, which I generally took
+alone, I did not meet with an instance of rudeness or incivility. It
+was the same whether I was crowding through the market or other public
+places, which were thronged by multitudes of people of all classes
+and complexions, white, brown and black, or threading the solitary
+and narrow streets and crooked by-lanes which, in many cities, would
+seem to offer every facility and inducement for the safe perpetration
+of deeds of violence. I one day passed some barracks, where several
+companies of soldiers were drilling. The gate was open, but guarded by
+a soldier. I stopped and looked in. "Passé," said the sentinel, and
+I walked in, saw the evolutions of the soldiers on drill, and passed
+through several groups of others off duty. Every thing was conducted
+without disorder, and I was as secure from any insult or annoyance as
+I should have been in the midst of a party of friends at home. There
+were many dark complexions among them, and I thought that quite half of
+them, officers as well as privates, were black.
+
+There are a great many restaurants, cafés, and other drinking
+establishments in Rio, and one would expect to see a great amount
+of intemperance among the people; and yet the only instances of
+drunkenness I saw there were those which occurred among the passengers
+and crew of our bark.
+
+_May 25._ Our latitude to-day is 24° 45' south, longitude 44° west. We
+have passed the Tropic of Capricorn, and are sailing in the southern
+temperate zone.
+
+_May 28._ I have had an unpleasant altercation with Capt. Jackson
+to-day. The occasion was this: Some pretty birds--Cape Pigeons--have
+been flying round the ship, and as I was desirous of preserving one
+or two specimens of their skins, one of the passengers caught one
+with a hook and line for me. As Mr. Johnson was desirous of showing
+it to the ladies in the cabin, I let him take it. When he returned
+it, he brought an order to me from the captain, who was then in the
+cabin, to throw the bird overboard. I resisted the order. The parson
+pleaded for the life of the bird as though it was a matter of the
+utmost consequence. I told him I had procured the bird for the purpose
+of preserving the skin, and I knew of no reason why I should not do
+it. In a few minutes the direful deed was done, and the body of the
+murdered bird lay stretched upon the deck skinless. The captain came up
+in great wrath, and a warm discussion ensued, during which he declared
+his fixed determination to protect the birds, and forbade the killing
+of another one during the voyage. I told him I was aware that he had
+the power to enforce his order, and that I should be obliged to submit,
+but I protested against it as an infringement of my rights, and an
+unjustifiable exercise of arbitrary power. I hinted to him that he had
+better bestow a little of his compassion upon his passengers, and told
+him that I had already suffered more from bad food, filthy water and
+want of proper nourishment during my sickness on this voyage, than all
+the birds I wished to kill would suffer by their deaths. So we parted,
+and in less than an hour my friends caught me another bird, which I
+skinned and preserved.
+
+_June 1._ Winter is upon us. At least it is fast approaching, this
+being the first winter month in this hemisphere. It is not to be
+expected that we shall find very cold weather in this low latitude--34°
+28'--but for some time past the cold has been sensibly increasing.
+We have left the sun far to the north, that is, in our position on
+the globe, we see it at the north instead of the south, as it appears
+to us on the other side of the equator. He has thrown down his rays
+vertically upon us as he passed, drawing the melting pitch from the
+seams of the ship, and filling the cabins with an insupportable heat.
+The North Star has long since disappeared, and the Great Bear and
+other constellations with which we are, or ought to be, familiar, have
+settled down in the north, and new constellations have taken their
+places. The awning, which we had placed over our house, as a protection
+from the heat, has been removed. The passengers no longer lodge
+there, and their beds have been returned to their berths. A fair wind
+is driving us onward, and a few days will find us in the regions of
+storms, snows, and perhaps of icebergs. May our second winter in 1852
+prove a short and fortunate one. A week has elapsed since we left Rio,
+our company are generally in good health, and our fears of an attack of
+yellow fever have vanished.
+
+We are attended by multitudes of Cape Pigeons, which are so gentle and
+unsuspicious of danger, that they alight on the water directly under
+our stern. There are other birds with them, but none so tame. A large
+bird about the size of a goose was caught with a baited hook by a
+passenger, who obtained permission from our humane captain to hook up
+the bird on condition that he should set it at liberty again. To-day
+for the first time I have seen an albatross.
+
+_June 2._ There have been some important changes made in our cooking
+department. I have already hinted that we have suffered severely
+from the wretched preparation of our food. The cooks are filthy in
+the extreme, and exceedingly careless. But before I proceed, let me
+describe our kitchen establishment. The duty of the first steward is to
+keep the ship's stores, and deal them out to the cooks. He also kneads
+up the bread, or "soft-tack," as it is called in contradistinction
+to the ship-bread, which is called "hard-tack." We have three other
+stewards or waiters, two for the main cabin, and one for our room in
+the after house. Our stewards also take their meals to the mates, who
+have a small room in the forward house. There is also a stewardess for
+the ladies' cabin. Two cooks prepare the food and deliver it to the
+stewards, who have charge of the tables in their respective cabins.
+
+One day the chief steward, while kneading his bread saw a dirty
+hen escape from her cage; and leaving his dough, he caught the
+hen, restored her to the cage, and returned to his dough with an
+accumulation of material upon his hands, which it was far from
+agreeable to witness, and which diminished the demand for soft tack
+very essentially. Little things of this sort were of every day
+occurrence. Messes of filthy trash were often set before us, which the
+most hungry among us could not swallow. We had a mess called "scouse,"
+made up of a mixture of all the scraps of the salt beef and pork left
+of our dinner, and broken pieces of ship-bread boiled together. This
+was served up repeatedly; but the pans of scouse were so often sent
+back full to the cooks' galley, that they desisted for several weeks
+from forcing it upon us. But this morning they made another attempt,
+doubtless by the captain's order, and added to the mess by way of
+improvement several condiments, which we had not before discovered,
+such as bits of orange peel and cheese and _mirabile dictu!_ of
+tobacco. We called the captain, and requested him to inspect the pan of
+scouse. He looked at it and passed on without any remark. He was met at
+the door by a deputation from the main cabin, bearing another pan of
+the delectable mixture. The captain by this time began to think that
+the matter was assuming rather a serious aspect, and he condescended
+to order an inspection of the cooks' galley, when the mischief was
+traced to an old fellow by the name of Draper, who was in the habit
+of drying his quids on a shelf directly over the boiler. Mr. Draper
+was accordingly degraded from the post of cook, and another gentleman
+appointed in his place. The passengers testified their satisfaction at
+this arrangement by three hearty cheers.
+
+Some of our wags played off a joke on the chief steward by tapping the
+heels of his boots in the night with some very heavy cakes which he had
+made. He complained of the indignity to the second mate, who advised
+him to give his taps a fair trial, for in his opinion the bread would
+prove an excellent substitute for leather.
+
+_June 3._ Last night we had a smart gale, which drove us forward at the
+rate of twelve knots; and this morning we were threatened with one of
+those squalls that often occur in the vicinity of the mouth of the Rio
+de la Plata, which we have just passed. The sky was overcast with dark
+clouds that were often illuminated with brilliant flashes of lightning.
+All hands were called and most of the sails furled. The squall burst
+upon us in a fine shower of rain, but the wind proved only a pleasant
+breeze, that helped up to make up a good day's reckoning.
+
+_June 6._ There has been an unpleasant altercation on this holy Sabbath
+between our worthy captain, (who, by the way, is a religious man and
+a member of a church,) and some of his lady passengers. The quarrel
+originated at the time of our visit at Rio. For several weeks prior to
+this visit, he had been very lavish of his attentions to Mrs. L----t,
+who had been ill during the voyage to Rio, and seemed to require a
+great deal of brandy and bitters, wine and gruel, and herb drinks.
+The captain was very assiduous in supplying the wants of Mrs. L----t,
+and his assiduities certainly entitled him to her warmest gratitude.
+But his intercourse with Mrs. L----t did not consist solely in
+administering drinks and doses. Among other little manifestations of
+friendliness, they united their fortunes in the purchase of a ticket in
+a lottery, which one of the passengers made of an article of jewelry.
+They drew the prize, and the captain became sole owner of the bauble
+by purchasing Mrs. L----t's share. Matters continued in this friendly
+way between them, till we arrived at Rio. Here, after inquiring into
+the health of the city, he cautioned his passengers against stopping on
+shore at night where they would be liable to take the yellow fever. The
+next morning he accompanied Mrs. L----t on shore, where they tarried
+day and night until the afternoon previous to our sailing. As a matter
+of course this, together with their previous intimacy, was a subject of
+much remark and some sport among the passengers. Their jokes reached
+Captain Jackson's ears and enraged him. He declared that there should
+be a stop put to the talk. The passengers thought otherwise. A smart
+little quarrel grew out of it, the women took it in hand, and nourished
+it, and to-day a discussion remarkable for its warmth and length, took
+place between Capt. J. and Mrs. L----t on one side, and Miss Julia
+S----g on the other. The battle raged till the middle of the afternoon,
+when the captain left in a very wrathful frame of mind to join in a
+religious service on deck, and to worship the God of peace and purity.
+Capt J. has a wife in Maine and Mrs. L----t a husband in San Francisco.
+
+_June 8._ Latitude 47° 6', longitude 59° 8'. We have cold weather,
+strong winds, squalls, snow, hail and rain. Great numbers of sea birds,
+chiefly Cape Pigeons, follow the ship. They bite very readily at a hook
+baited with pork, and are easily caught. They are pretty birds, and fly
+with great ease and gracefulness, and their wings seem never to tire.
+They alight on the water, on which they swim with great agility, and I
+have seen them dive several feet into the water in pursuit of food that
+had been thrown to them from the ship. There is considerable difference
+both in the size and color of these birds, and perhaps a skillful
+ornithologist might determine them to consist of several species,
+though I am inclined to consider them as varieties of the same
+species. One of the passengers caught two of them for me, but owing to
+cold weather and a slight seasickness at this time, I lost them.
+
+_June 10._ Caught two more Cape Pigeons, and it being cold on deck, I
+was glad to accept the invitation from some of the passengers in the
+main cabin to skin the birds there. Their beaks were of a delicate
+light ash or lead color, and their breasts white. There were some dark
+spots on the wings. They were seventeen inches long, and forty-two and
+a half inches in the stretch of their wings. Two spotted ones, whose
+skins I have preserved, are smaller, being only thirty-four inches in
+alar extent.
+
+Our oranges have nearly disappeared. Having been kept in close boxes
+and chests, they have decayed very rapidly. I have found them very
+beneficial to my health, and should be glad to keep them till we arrive
+at the next port, but they will be used up before we reach Cape Horn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     A Disagreeable Scene--Scarcity of Oil--Lamps and Slush--An
+     Albatross--Ill Manners of the Mate--Cold Weather--The Whiffletree
+     Watch--Disagreeable Scene--Magellan Clouds and Southern Cross--An
+     Act of Kindness--Turnovers and Sport--Tierra del Fuego and Staten
+     Land--A Perilous Passage--Ducks and Cape Pigeons--A Squall--A
+     Black Albatross--Cape Horn--Stormy Weather--A Gale--Accident at
+     the Breakfast Table.
+
+
+One of those disagreeable scenes, which are of too frequent occurrence
+among us, came off this morning. Captain J. without any ceremony or
+consultation with the passengers, ordered the cooks to supply us with
+but two meals a day. This would not have been very seriously objected
+to, had we been furnished with any decent food in place of the vile
+trash, upon which we have been forced to subsist. But after waiting
+till half past eight, the time appointed for breakfast under this new
+regulation, behold! a pan of scouse is placed before us! And this was
+to suffice until two or three in the afternoon. Some of us could not,
+and others would not, eat it, and after much "growling," as the captain
+terms our remonstrances, we succeeded in getting a dish of cold hasty
+pudding--the cooks refusing to warm it for us--and on this, with a
+dipper full of muddy coffee for those who could drink it, and of water
+for those who could not, we made our breakfast. We were in an excellent
+frame of mind to quarrel with the captain, and after a warm dispute we
+succeeded in having the former order of things restored. And bad enough
+it was at that.
+
+A day or two since I applied to Capt. J. to sell or lend me a little
+oil for my own special use during the long nights we have just begun
+to encounter. This led to an examination of the ship's stock of
+oil, when it was ascertained that but a few gallons remained, which
+it was necessary to husband with the greatest care. To remedy the
+inconvenience of remaining in almost total darkness, the occupants of
+the main cabin have invented a variety of lamps, which they manufacture
+out of bottles and phials, cutting them off by means of strings,
+which they pass rapidly round them till they become heated by the
+friction, and then dipping them in water. These lamps they fill with
+"slush"--grease left by the cooks,--which, though a poor substitute for
+oil, they are happy to get.
+
+_June 11._ A large white albatross flew round the ship to-day with
+other birds. I threw out a baited hook for him, while the mate stood
+by with an open knife, threatening to cut the line. I caught the bird
+several times by the bill, and drew him close under the stern, but he
+slipped from the hook, and thus saved the amiable mate the trouble of
+executing his threat.
+
+The cold has increased to such a degree, that Captain J. has set up a
+stove in the ladies' cabin. The owners of the ship have also supplied a
+stove for our room, but the captain tells us there is not wood enough
+for it--though we are convinced he knows better--and therefore refuses
+to have it set up. So we must make up our minds for a cold passage
+round Cape Horn. The ladies are making some additional preparations
+for warding off the cold. Two of them have made themselves hoods, and
+after searching in vain among their stores for cotton to stuff them
+with, they have--by permission--attacked my comforter, and supplied
+themselves.
+
+_June 13._ For a week past we have been drifting about within little
+more than a day's sail of the Falkland Islands, beating against head
+winds, encountering squalls of wind, accompanied by rain, hail
+and snow, almost every hour of the day, and making but very little
+progress. This state of things is very irksome to us, and we are not
+a little impatient. The days are very short, and the nights dark and
+dreary. Our situation is any thing but agreeable, and yet we often find
+some little thing to amuse us, and the veriest trifles will sometimes
+answer this purpose. One night during a squall, some of the passengers
+were out assisting the sailors in furling the sails, when a small spar
+gave way and broke. "There," exclaimed one of them, "that whiffletree
+has gone to the devil!" The idea of a whiffletree as one of the spars
+of a ship, amused the crew, and our volunteer sailors were thereafter
+denominated "the Whiffletree Watch."
+
+_June 14._ Another disgraceful scene occurred in the ladies' cabin this
+morning, being a continuation of the quarrel that took place a week
+since between our worthy captain and Julia Spaulding. The altercation
+between them was very violent, a part of which I overheard. Captain J.
+was in great wrath, smote his fists together, and repeatedly called
+Julia a liar; told her he would have no more of her lies, charged her
+indirectly with having attempted to seduce him, and threatened to
+shut her up and feed her by herself. All this intermingled with much
+profane and other violent language towards a female is by no means
+calculated to remove the strong dislike, which the passengers entertain
+for Captain J. They also very naturally side with the woman, who, they
+think, tells quite as many truths as falsehoods in the matter.
+
+_June 15._ I lay this morning looking from the single remaining pane
+of glass in my window upon a bright sky, which I have not often had an
+opportunity to observe in this region of clouds and storms, and looking
+for the first time upon the Magellan Clouds, and contemplating the
+brilliant constellations in the heavens, among which the Southern Cross
+shone conspicuously. The Cross has been in view for several weeks; but
+though I have seen it several times, I have not until recently been
+certain of its identity, and our intelligent officers could give me no
+information concerning it.
+
+     "The Magellan Clouds consist of three small nebulæ in the southern
+     part of the heavens--two bright, like the milky way, and one dark.
+     These are first seen above the horizon soon after crossing the
+     southern tropic. When off Cape Horn they are nearly overhead. The
+     Cross is composed of four stars in that form, and is said to be
+     the brightest constellation in the heavens."[A]
+
+     [A] R. H. Dana, Jr.
+
+I received a little act of kindness in the evening, which I cannot
+deny myself the pleasure of recording. Soon after supper as I was
+standing in our cabin, I remarked to a passenger that I had eaten
+but one biscuit during the day, and that I was really hungry. To his
+question "why do you not eat some ship-bread?" I replied that I had
+taken a distaste to it during my seasickness, and the very sight of
+it had become loathsome to me. It was the same with the beans we
+had to-day,--boiled beans and pork, which had been served up to us
+three or four times a week during the voyage. The wife of the chief
+steward--Mrs. Grant--was present and heard the conversation. She
+immediately left the cabin and passed to the cooks' galley. In a few
+minutes she returned, and as she passed by me she cautioned me to be
+silent, while she slipped a large turnover or fried mince-pie into my
+coat-pocket. The cooks had made a quantity of them for the captain
+and ladies, and she had begged this for me. Many such kindnesses
+have I received from her and other women during the voyage. They
+derive their value, not from the greatness of the gift bestowed, but
+from the circumstances in which both the giver and the receiver are
+placed, and to me, sick, hungry and thirsty as I often have been, I
+have felt such favors to be of "greater value than stamps in gold, or
+sums in sealed bags."
+
+The passengers in the main cabin have made these turnovers and the
+other varieties, which are got up for the inmates of the ladies' cabin,
+a subject of some pleasantry. They feel that they are equally entitled
+to these dainties with the other passengers. It was stipulated by the
+owners of the vessel, that all the passengers should fare alike, and
+they are naturally sensitive at the distinction which is constantly
+made to their prejudice; and the more so as the captain and two other
+men besides Mr. Johnson, have domiciled themselves in the ladies'
+cabin, where they partake of the best the ship affords, while the
+majority starve on scouse and boiled beans.
+
+There was a large gathering near the captain's state-room soon after
+supper to-night, where they continued some time shouting vociferously,
+and singing a parody on a fine old song, of which I never heard but
+these two lines:
+
+    "Tim Darling didn't know but his father was well,
+    And his father didn't know but Tim Darling was well."
+
+The parody ran thus:
+
+    "The cooks, they all know that the captain lives well,
+    And the captain, he knows that the cooks, they live well."
+
+The captain listened to the music, which was fully equal to the poetry,
+but with a greater degree of prudence than he sometimes exercises, he
+controlled his temper and pocketed the insult.
+
+_June 16._ A fine gale sprung up last night, and continues blowing
+to-day, bearing us on our course, westward of the Falkland Islands,
+towards the Strait of Le Maire, through which we hope to pass
+to-morrow.
+
+_June 17._ A cloudless, golden sky in the morning, a pleasant breeze,
+a calm sea, a cool air, but not freezing, and a soft, hazy atmosphere,
+like one of our northern summer mornings. Tierra del Fuego lay before
+us on the right, and Staten Land on the left, their valleys and heights
+covered with snow. I promised myself the great gratification of a near
+view of both of these desolate regions; but in this I was doomed to
+disappointment.
+
+Before ten o'clock the sky became filled with clouds, and the
+brilliancy of the morning gave place to darkness and gloom. An eclipse
+of the sun occurred during the day, which increased the darkness. The
+wind gradually died away, and we passed several hours at the entrance
+to the Strait of Le Maire, where we encountered a strong current till
+night, when we perceived the ship to be drifting astern. At about
+four P.M. the tide turned, and swept us back into the Strait
+again. It was now dark, and but little could be seen around us. The
+current carried us towards Staten Land, whose coasts were very bold
+and dangerous to approach, and were rendered doubly so at this time
+by the exceeding darkness of the night. Our sails were flapping
+uselessly against the masts, we had no control over the vessel, which
+was drifting at the rate of four knots an hour, and our situation was
+becoming perilous in the extreme. Captain J. was exceedingly anxious.
+He ordered the mate to have the boats in readiness, for we might soon
+want them. We were now only three miles distant from the coast as the
+captain conjectured. A heavy swell added to our danger and increased
+our difficulties; and there seemed scarcely a hope of our escaping
+shipwreck, on one of the most desolate and forlorn coasts of which
+the imagination can conceive. But just at this juncture, when a few
+minutes more would have sent the ship on to the rocks, a favorable wind
+providentially sprung up, the sails filled, the ship began to feel her
+helm, and we bade adieu to Staten Land.
+
+But another danger awaited us. In getting clear of Staten Land we
+approached too near the coast of Tierra del Fuego, and came very near
+running upon a large rock that lies off that coast; but happily the
+sailor at the watch discovered it in season to wear ship, and sail by
+it. At length all the dangers of this hazardous passage were cleared,
+and before morning we had passed into the open ocean again.
+
+We saw but few signs of vegetation on Staten Land. It was thrown up
+into mountains and precipices of the most rugged and barren character,
+and presented an aspect of dreary desolation. There were patches of
+low shrubs in sight on Tierra del Fuego, but no trees. The hills at
+the entrance to the Strait were less precipitous than those on Staten
+Land. But the whole scene, so far as the early darkness permitted us to
+view it, was as forbidding as it could well be. Immense flocks of ducks
+flew across the Strait towards Staten Land in the afternoon. There was
+also a flock of Cape Pigeons, perhaps a hundred in number, flying round
+the ship, and the passengers fed them with scraps of pork and with
+pot skimmings. As I watched this amusement, I could not suppress the
+thought that this was an inexcusable waste of those precious dainties,
+which should have been preserved for the manufacture of--scouse.
+
+The width of the Strait of Le Maire is about twenty miles. The length
+of Staten Land is seventy miles.
+
+_June 19._ We beat against a head wind yesterday, and made but little
+progress. To-day we had a specimen of Cape Horn weather. A squall
+arose in the morning, the most violent we have yet encountered; and
+the sailors were sent in good haste to shorten sail. Assisted by the
+passengers, they soon reduced the canvass to the proper quantity, and
+our vessel rode out the storm in fine style, and without any damage.
+But the captain and two of the passengers lost each a hat. The wind
+abated in the afternoon.
+
+While the gale was at its height, one of the passengers caught a
+beautiful black albatross for me. But while the company were looking at
+it, the captain and mate watched the bird, determined that it should
+not be killed. I believe they really felt that the safety of the ship
+depended on the life of the bird. It was a magnificent specimen of this
+species of albatross, in fact, the only one I ever saw, and would have
+been a valuable acquisition to me. But I left it for a moment in charge
+of a friend, when the captain ordered the second mate to bring it to
+him, and he threw it overboard. Such is the influence of superstition
+on an ignorant seaman.
+
+_June 20._ The gale of yesterday subsided at night to a light breeze,
+which continued during the night, and this morning we had the great
+gratification of beholding Cape Horn. It lay but a few miles distant,
+and in full view before us. I felt a slight degree of enthusiasm as I
+looked upon it, and recalled the descriptions I had read of it in my
+boyhood, and the tales of terror I had gathered from the narratives
+of voyages round this far-famed point. We were sailing past the Cape
+in a south-west direction, with a breeze that was fast increasing in
+strength, and we hoped that the next tack of our ship would carry us
+safely beyond the much dreaded barrier. But we soon found that this was
+not to be so speedily accomplished. The wind rose to a gale, and we
+were obliged to reduce our canvass to a few sails, and at last to lay
+to under the foretop-mast-stay sail, main-stay sail and spanker.
+
+Cape Horn is a naked promontory at the extremity of a little island
+about twelve miles long, called Horn Island. Many other islands and
+rocks lie in the neighborhood, but Cape Horn is readily distinguished
+from them all by its greater height and the steepness of its
+south-western side. It is ninety miles distant from the Strait of Le
+Maire. Its latitude is 55° 59' south, and its longitude, 67° 16' west.
+
+_June 21._ We are still encountering head winds, still laying to and
+drifting to leeward. The wind blows in tempestuous gusts, and the
+seas are running higher than I have ever before seen them. The sky is
+covered with clouds, from which we receive frequent showers of rain,
+accompanied in a single instance, with thunder and lightning. Now and
+then the sun breaks forth for a moment, but soon disappears again.
+It is a season of anxiety to many of us, but the bark proves a good
+sea-boat, and we have considerable confidence in the skill of our
+captain.
+
+_June 22._ The gale became furious last night, and seemed increasing
+in force this morning. We had no little difficulty in eating our
+breakfast. A pan of fried pork and boiled beef, another pan of
+hard-bread, and a pot of coffee were set on the table, but how to keep
+them there required a greater degree of skill than we possessed. We
+could not sit, and we were in danger every moment of being pitched
+over the table, and across the cabin. To avoid such a catastrophe we
+were obliged to hold by the berths with both hands. We made an effort,
+however, to eat, but had hardly made a beginning when a violent lurch
+of the ship sent our pork, bread, coffee, and all, in an instant upon
+the floor and into a neighboring berth. The scene was rather ludicrous,
+and we managed to extract a laugh out of it as we picked up the
+fragments, sent for a pot of fresh coffee, and finished our breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     Severe Cold--Furious Storm--Diego Ramirez Islands--Land
+     Ahead--Cape Horn Weather--Two Vessels--Length of Days and
+     Nights--Disagreeable Brawl--Heading North--Patagonia--The
+     Andes--Another Storm--Anxiety of Captain J.--A Lunar
+     Rainbow--Another Gale--Bill of Fare--Filthy Cooks and Impure Water.
+
+
+_June 23._ The wind, which continued to blow with great fury during
+the night, began to subside a little towards morning, and as it was
+now veering to a more favorable point, we unfurled the sails, and were
+in good spirits at the prospect of speedily weathering the Cape. But
+the wind soon changed again, and continued to blow in violent gusts
+during the day, bringing down flights of snow and sleet, which covered
+the decks, and froze the sails and rigging. The cold was severe, and
+our cabin very uncomfortable. By invitation from one of the ladies, I
+visited their cabin for the first time since we left Rio. I was glad
+of an opportunity to warm my feet and hands at their stove. We are
+in the habit of betaking ourselves to our berths for warmth, though
+I occasionally get into the cooks' galley when it is not occupied by
+other passengers or sailors.
+
+During a temporary abatement of the gale at night, several of the
+ladies went out and amused themselves with snow-balling. The sport was
+lively but of short continuance.
+
+_June 24._ A fresh wind was blowing in the morning when I arose, and
+a thick fall of snow nearly blinded me as I went out on deck. The
+cold had become intense, and it was a time of suffering for the poor
+sailors. But the wind was fair, and Captain J. determined to improve
+it by spreading more sail. But the men had scarcely got the fore
+and maintop sails set, when the storm came on again with a fury far
+exceeding any thing we had yet encountered, and they were again sent
+aloft to furl the sails. We now lay to under two stay sails, the ship
+rolling with great violence, and the seas breaking over the decks.
+
+There is a beauty, a sublimity in this war of the winds and waters,
+that fill the mind of the beholder with emotions of mingled delight and
+awe, and not unfrequently, be it confessed, with fear. It presents a
+scene which is difficult to describe, and can be imagined only by him
+who has witnessed it. To the captain it was at this time a season of
+anxiety, and to the sailors one of severe hardship. It was also a time
+of much uneasiness with many of the passengers; and one of them, who
+went up to assist in furling a sail, came down with his hands badly
+frozen. The winds whistled, howled and shrieked through the rigging,
+the torn sails flapped, the strained masts creaked and groaned, the
+waves rolled up into immense billows covered with foam, and dashed
+against the sides of the ship and over the bulwarks, deluging every
+person and setting afloat every loose thing upon the decks. Borne
+about by the raging waters, the ship often staggered for a moment upon
+the crest of a great wave, as if fearful of the plunge she was about
+to take, but quickly sinking down into the moving chasm, as if she
+were attempting to dive to the bottom of the sea, until overtaken by
+another billow, she rose to its crest, though only to be sunk into
+another and another gulf. Sometimes pressed down upon her side by a
+more violent gust of wind until her yardarms dipped into the water, the
+interposition of a merciful Providence only could save us. But that
+Providence, which had watched over, and guarded and guided us through
+so many perils, did not desert us in this. The blast swept by, the ship
+slowly arose, and her freight of eighty-eight human beings escaped the
+threatened destruction.
+
+Restless as the sea birds that still hovered around her, ever in
+motion, pitching, plunging, lurching and rolling, she was apparently
+driven about at the mercy of the winds and waves, that almost bade
+defiance to the men at the wheel, whose utmost skill and exertions
+could scarce enable them to direct her course.
+
+Captain J. came into the after house during the storm to take a cup of
+coffee, with his clothes whitened with the snow and his face coated
+with ice. But he had scarcely been in a minute, when he was hastily
+sent for by the mate, for the gale had suddenly increased to such a
+degree of violence, that we were in great danger of being capsized. He
+went out again, and gave orders to reduce even the small patches of
+canvass that were still flying. His orders were answered promptly, and
+the ship lay to again. The storm raged with great fury till near noon,
+when it began to abate, and we were enabled to carry a little more
+sail. The wind continued favorable during the remainder of the day, but
+the snow squalls came on in terrible blasts until late at night.
+
+A week had now elapsed since we passed through the Strait of Le Maire,
+and so beclouded had the sky been during that time, that Captain J. had
+had no opportunity to take an observation of the sun, and of course he
+was in painful uncertainty as to our situation. There was some danger
+to be apprehended from a cluster of small islands or rocks, called the
+Diego Ramirez Islands, lying fifty-five miles to the south-west of Cape
+Horn, and near which we expected to pass. And it behooved us to keep a
+good lookout for these rocks during the obscurity of the day, and the
+deep darkness of the night.
+
+_June 25._ The cry of "land ahead" aroused us at an early hour this
+morning. It proved to be the islands I have just mentioned. The night
+was so dark that we were close upon the breakers before we were aware
+of our approach to the islands. Fortunately we had room enough in which
+to wear ship and escape the danger. We stood away till daylight enabled
+us to resume our course, when we passed between these islands and
+Tierra del Fuego.
+
+We have now weathered Cape Horn. During eight days since we passed
+through the Strait of Le Maire, we have been struggling against head
+winds, and have at length accomplished a task, which might have been
+performed with a fair wind in ten or twelve hours. Our impatience has
+been great, and we feel much relieved on finding ourselves beyond the
+stormy barrier, and with a fair prospect of soon being safely delivered
+from this region of storms and darkness. There is another little
+circumstance that adds to our cheerfulness. From the second day since
+we left Rio we have not seen a single sail. This afternoon two vessels
+are in sight, and our company, for want of other subjects, are busily
+engaged in discussing the questions, "Who are they?" and "Can we come
+up with them?" and "How soon?"
+
+The sun rose to-day at fifteen minutes past nine, and set at fifteen
+minutes before three, giving us a day of five and a half hours, and a
+night eighteen and a half hours long.
+
+_June 27._ Sunday. Our ship has been the scene of a disgraceful brawl,
+I may almost say, riot. For many weeks past, a feud has existed between
+our worthy chaplain, Mr. Johnson, and Miss Julia S. Miss Julia, who is
+not overburdened with a superabundance of refinement or delicacy, has
+used some rather coarse language towards Mr. J., which he, perhaps, has
+not received with that meekness and forbearance, which would become
+a minister of the Gospel. This morning when he arose, he saw a dress
+of Miss Julia's hanging against the stove, where she had placed it to
+dry, and not being in that amiable frame of mind that would seem to
+be desirable, he threw the dress upon the floor, where it remained
+till Miss Julia found it. Her wrath was very bitter, and many hard
+words passed between her and the reverend chaplain; the temper of both
+parties increasing in warmth until Mr. J. remarked in the language of
+Scripture that he would leave Miss Julia to her "wallowing like a sow
+in the mire," whereupon Miss Julia seized a billet of wood and threw
+it at the head of the parson, and the parson, in the excitement of the
+moment, forgetting the injunction to turn the other cheek, returned
+the compliment by hitting Miss Julia a slap in the face, and pushing
+her towards the companion-way. By this time the inmates of our room,
+overhearing the uproar, had assembled at the head of the companion-way,
+and were on the point of rushing down; but taking a moment to consider,
+they turned back, and in an instant were engaged among themselves in
+an altercation upon the demerits of the quarrel, almost as violent as
+that which was raging below. Captain J. soon joined us, and as his mode
+of reasoning seldom tends to allay wrath or to settle a dispute, the
+discussion continued with increased violence, and it was several hours
+before order was restored. As in former quarrels, a large majority
+of the passengers were found to advocate the cause of the woman. But
+whoever was most to blame, Mr. Johnson was the most deeply injured by
+the quarrel, and his influence and usefulness, which had long been
+waning, were from this time ended. There are several religious people
+in the main cabin, who held a prayer-meeting after the quarrel had
+subsided, but Mr. J. did not attend, nor did he attempt to hold any
+other religious exercises during the day.
+
+_June 28._ We are now driving along before a fine breeze in the Pacific
+Ocean, which seems disposed to prove to us on our introduction, that
+she is entitled to the soubriquet by which she is known. Cape Horn is
+far behind us, we have given Tierra del Fuego a wide berth, and headed
+our ship for the north. Our next port, Talcahuana, is only a thousand
+miles distant,--next to nothing,--and we will be there in a week if
+this breeze continues. Sherman has captured another porpoise, and we
+shall have some steaks for breakfast, and some oil for our lamps.
+The air for two days past has been comparatively mild, I am enabled
+to spend considerable time on deck, my health is improving, and I am
+enjoying many pleasing anticipations.
+
+_June 29._ Our course is parallel to the coast of Patagonia; and though
+more than seventy-five miles distant from it, we have a distinct view
+of some majestic ranges of mountains on the large islands, which lie
+along the coast. Standing as they do in this bleak and dreary land,
+their sides and summits shrouded in snow, and presenting to the view
+and the imagination, a picture at once of vast sublimity and of eternal
+solitude and utter desolation, I can scarcely restrain the feeling of
+awe that comes over me as I behold them. But what land is that coming
+suddenly in sight under our lee bow, and nearly in the direction of
+the ship? All hands are gazing at it, and Captain J., as he sees our
+proximity to the land, begins to doubt the accuracy of his reckoning.
+We are all anxious about it, for with the wind in its present
+direction, we must tack ship or run ashore. Night comes on, the ship is
+put about, and our dream of a speedy run to Talcahuana is at an end.
+And these mountains we have been beholding must lie beyond the islands,
+and it adds not a little to the interest of the scene to reflect that
+they can be no other than a portion of the great range of the Andes,
+and this my first, and will probably be my last view of them.
+
+_June 30._ It has been our fortune to encounter another storm. The
+wind blew with great fury, and rolled the waves up to a magnificent
+height. We had been scudding before it nearly all day, and were fast
+drifting on a lee shore, with little chance of escape but with a change
+of wind. Captain J. passed much of his time on deck, and was watchful
+and anxious. He came into our room at night to warn us of approaching
+danger. "I tell you what," said he, "I don't want to say nothing to
+skear you, but if this wind holds till morning, we shall see hard
+times." Such an announcement from our experienced captain, who had not,
+during the voyage, uttered a warning so fraught with terror to us,
+and which betrayed his sense of the imminence of our danger, caused
+a shade of deep anxiety to pass over the countenances of many of our
+companions, who could have exclaimed in the language of honest old
+Gonzalo: "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of
+barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be
+done! but I would fain die a dry death." But it was not our destiny to
+be engulfed in the raging sea, nor to suffer a more horrible death on
+the bleak and desolate coast of Patagonia. After a few hours of anxious
+suspense, we perceived a lull in the storm, and this lull was succeeded
+by a change in the wind, which enabled us to stand on our course again,
+which we did under all the canvass our ship could carry.
+
+_July 2._ I have had the pleasure of beholding a novel phenomenon,
+a lunar rainbow. It occurred at seven o'clock in the evening. The
+atmosphere was hazy, and the moon shone with a dim luster. Though much
+fainter than a solar rainbow, and having none of its brilliant hues,
+it was still very distinct, and spanned nearly half the arch of the
+heavens.
+
+_July 4. Sunday._ No religious services to-day, nor any celebration of
+the anniversary of Independence. Instead thereof, we have been battling
+with another heavy gale, and driving before it under the foresail,
+foretop sail, and maintop sail, all close reefed. The seas run very
+high, and the ship pitched violently. Standing on the quarter-deck, we
+could often see the waves over the fore yard as the vessel pitched into
+the trough of a sea.
+
+_July 5._ Another attempt has been made to induce Captain J. to
+substitute a more decent bill of fare in place of the disgusting dishes
+upon which he has starved us during the voyage. As we are approaching
+Talcahuana, where a supply of such necessaries as we may need can
+be obtained, it was thought proper to hold a formal meeting for the
+purpose in the main cabin. A chairman, secretary and a committee
+to report a bill of fare for the consideration of Captain J., were
+chosen. Mr. Grant, the chief steward, was called in, who stated that
+in supplying the table in the after cabin with better food than those
+in the other parts of the ship, he had acted in compliance with the
+orders of Captain J., and that the captain had also directed him to
+reduce the allowance of soft-tack to the passengers. The committee on
+the bill of fare reported to recommend for dinners, on Monday, beef
+and rice; on Tuesday, beans and pork; on Wednesday, fish and potatoes,
+or rice; on Thursday, beef and potatoes and duff; on Friday, beans and
+pork; on Saturday, fish and potatoes, and on Sunday, beef and duff,
+with soft-tack and apple-sauce once a day. This report was accepted.
+The committee immediately waited upon the captain, whom they found in
+a more amiable mood than they had anticipated, and obtained from him
+some general promises of improvement, which gave us a slight degree of
+encouragement.
+
+It is not a little provoking under all our privations to know that
+we have on board the bark a sufficient quantity of wholesome food to
+make us comfortable. In addition to good beef, pork, codfish, beans,
+potatoes and hard-bread, we have a quantity of flour, sufficient to
+give us a reasonable supply of soft-tack, besides rice, dried apples,
+raisins and sugar. We have no reason to complain of the owners of
+the vessel, but charge our discomforts to the surly brutality of the
+captain, and the execrable filthiness of the cooks. A portion of our
+supply of water is impure, having been put into bad casks. But when one
+of these casks is tapped, however disgusting it may be, we are allowed
+no other until it is used up.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     Captain Jackson--A Drifting Spar--Approaching
+     Talcahuana--Washing-day--Landscapes--Harbor of
+     Talcahuana--Pelicans--A Visit from Officials--Description of the
+     Town--American Houses--Tremont House--A Dinner.
+
+
+Captain J. seems to be actuated by only one object, namely, to make
+a profitable voyage for his employers, regardless of the rights or
+comforts of his passengers. And any little concessions he makes to
+the demands of his passengers,--and these concessions are few and far
+between,--any little change he makes for the better in our fare, any
+thing he does to alleviate the discomforts of our voyage, is done with
+extreme reluctance, and seldom without a dispute or a serious quarrel.
+Let me finish the picture I have begun of the man. He has the frame
+of a giant, six feet two inches high. His fist is brawny as the paw
+of a grizzly bear, and his foot is a terror to shoe-makers. He is
+ungainly in his figure, and awkward and ungraceful in every movement
+and gesture. He has a coarse, vulgar, morose cast of countenance, is
+distant and repulsive in his manners, gross and vulgar in his tastes
+and conversation, and fond of repeating profane and obscene jests and
+anecdotes. He is exceedingly obstinate, wilful and unyielding, which
+qualities he mistakes for independence of mind. He boasts of his
+indifference as to what is said of him, and yet manifests an extreme
+sensitiveness when he is made the subject of a jest. Notwithstanding
+his long continued intercourse with the world, he has learned nothing
+of human nature, and he thinks to govern men by fear and brute force,
+rather than by reason, persuasion or kindness. There is nothing
+conciliating in his disposition, but in all his discussions with his
+passengers, he talks in a spirit of rude dictation and of defiance. He
+seldom speaks a kind word to his sailors, and has acquired the hearty
+hatred of them all. He hates Dana and his "Two years before the Mast,"
+because Dana's sympathies are enlisted on the side of the oppressed
+seamen, and against tyrannical ship-masters. He hates Edward Kent, our
+Consul at Rio, for the same reason. He is strongly tinctured with those
+superstitions that characterize the ignorant portion of his class. In
+politics he is a rabid loco-foco, a blind worshiper of Andrew Jackson,
+whom he has been taught to call a second Washington. But his chief
+political knowledge consists in a number of slang phrases and slurs,
+which he threw out with great liberality in the former part of the
+voyage, but which were answered in a manner that taught him a little
+circumspection in the use of his favorite weapons. Such is the man, to
+whose arbitrary will we are bound to submit during this long voyage.
+But we believe him to be a cautious and skillful navigator; and if we
+see in him a total absence of every characteristic of a gentleman,
+of every qualification requisite to make an agreeable commander of
+a passenger-ship, we are happy to find some compensation for these
+defects in his watchfulness and care.
+
+_July 6._ Approaching the harbor of Talcahuana, we saw a large broken
+yard with several ropes attached to it, floating within a few rods
+of the ship. From the fresh appearance of the fracture, I perceived
+that it had recently been broken. A casual remark dropped by one of
+the passengers, that some vessel had probably been wrecked in one of
+the storms we had lately encountered, and the spar was passed and
+forgotten. But what a history of suffering and despair may there be
+connected with that spar! Perhaps it belonged to our acquaintance at
+Rio, the North America. She may have been wrecked on this coast, and
+her five hundred souls have been sunk in the waves or dashed on the
+rocks. In their efforts to save themselves, may not some of them have
+been lashed to this very yard? Perhaps, as the vessel went to pieces,
+and one after another was swallowed up, the lives of a few may have
+been prolonged beyond those of their fellow sufferers. And oh! what an
+hour of horror must that have been to them! What thoughts of deep and
+bitter anguish did they send to the homes they had seen for the last
+time, and to the wives, daughters, mothers, sisters and friends, to
+whom they had bidden farewell forever! What ages of intense agony must
+have been concentrated and endured in the few hours, perhaps minutes,
+those sufferers lay lashed to that spar, and saw, one after another,
+their companions expire! May not this vessel have been lost in one of
+the storms that nearly drove us ashore upon the coast of Patagonia? How
+near may we have been to sharing the same fate with them? And may we
+not, even now, after having escaped so many dangers, be reserved for
+the same or a worse doom? Such or similar reflections naturally arise
+in one's mind at the sight of a floating mast or spar at sea. I have
+often seen them, but never before one so new, and bearing such certain
+indications of a recent shipwreck.
+
+We are in a state of excitement consequent on approaching a port after
+our long voyage, and there is much preparation making for going ashore;
+washing, which has been but slightly performed during our cold passage,
+shaving, and cutting hair. Our chests and trunks are overhauled, and
+clean shirts and the best pants are selected. It is "washing day" too
+with the women, who have obtained some fresh water for their purpose.
+Even Mrs. L----t, who has hitherto manifested a very idle disposition,
+has gathered up a quantity of her child's garments, and proves that she
+is not incompetent to perform the duties of the wash-tub, while Captain
+J. stands like a sentinel over her, engaged in a low, but earnest
+conversation, attracting the attention, and exciting the remarks of the
+company, by his ridiculous manifestations of a silly lover's foolish
+fondness.
+
+The sight of a landscape is always delightful to me, but it is
+particularly so after having been so long at sea. We have had many
+views of the coast during our passage from Rio, but they have been only
+those of naked and barren rocks, desolate shores, and snow-covered
+mountains. Now we begin again to behold symptoms of vegetable life. The
+sides of a high hill we have passed, though there is no sign of a human
+habitation near it, have the appearance of cultivated fields and thick
+forests. And some of the trees have a shade of light green, reminding
+us of fields of wheat in Maine, and suggesting many thoughts of home to
+us. Yonder, as far as the eye can reach, is a point of land rising to
+the view. And as we approach it, there are seen two beautifully rounded
+hills. We have examined the chart, and find these hills to be the "Paps
+of Bio-bio," and Talcahuana lies several miles beyond them. We had
+hoped to reach that port to-day, but now we find the distance too great
+to be accomplished by daylight, and as Captain J. has never been there,
+he will not risk the passage by night. So, despite our impatience, we
+have no alternative but to sail up to the entrance to the harbor, and
+lay off and on till morning.
+
+_July 7._ We entered the harbor of Talcahuana at ten o'clock in the
+morning, and spent the remainder of the day in beating up to the town
+against a head wind, a distance of about twenty miles. Our entrance
+to this port was signalized by a very interesting event, nothing
+less than my first sight of that monster bird, the Brown Pelican.
+(_Pelicanus fuscus._) A great flock of sea birds were hovering over
+the water, and centering to one point, probably attracted by some
+substance on which they were feeding. The passengers watched them with
+great interest. We sailed very near them before they left the spot,
+when, to my great gratification, I saw a dozen pelicans, with their
+immensely long bills and great pouches, rise up and fly away with the
+flock. Never before had I seen such an unwieldy bird on wings, and it
+seemed a wonder that it could support such a ponderous body in the air.
+But though ungainly in their appearance, they flew with considerable
+velocity, and sustained their great weight and bulk with much ease. Our
+company were all strangers to the bird, and with one exception none
+could tell its name.
+
+We dropped anchor within half a mile of the town amidst a fleet of
+twelve ships and barks, several of which belonged to the United States.
+We were immediately visited by the captain of the port, who was an
+Englishman, attended by other officials, Chilians. We also received a
+call from three other gentlemen, American merchants, formerly from New
+York, Massachusetts and Ohio. They came on board to solicit business.
+By invitation from one of them, Captain J. went on shore, and passed
+the night with him; and the next day he took his _chere amie_, Mrs.
+L----t, to the same house, where they tarried till we sailed. It was
+gratifying to meet thus unexpectedly, a number of our own countrymen
+in this far distant port, and to learn, as we did, that several other
+Yankees were residents here.
+
+_July 8._ A number of Chilian boats were along-side in the morning
+for passengers. We speedily filled them, all of us eager to land,
+our curiosity being highly excited in anticipation of the new and
+strange things we were about to behold in this pretty town, as it
+appeared to us from the ship. Judge then of my disappointment when
+on landing I found myself in the most filthy and disgusting village
+I ever beheld. A row of ill-looking houses, huts and shops stretched
+along the bay for nearly a mile. Three very narrow, parallel streets
+ran the length of the village, and were crossed at right angles by
+other streets still narrower, and all filled with deep mud and filth.
+A few large warehouses, stores, and dwellings, stood in the front
+street, but all with a very few exceptions, only one-story high; and
+in no single instance was there the least pretension to architectural
+beauty. The houses were generally built in long ranges or blocks, and
+so low that we could touch the eaves as we passed them. There were also
+great numbers of little huts made of stakes driven into the ground,
+interwoven with twigs, and plastered over with mud. A roof thatched
+with coarse grass completed the dwelling. Many of the better buildings
+had their roofs covered with coarse tiles. Besides the large warehouses
+I have mentioned, which all belonged to foreigners, there were many
+little shops containing a plentiful supply of liquors in bottles, and
+some articles of dry goods. An open space for a square was left at
+the back part of the village. To this square the inhabitants retreat
+for safety in case of earthquakes. It was destitute of trees or any
+other ornament. There was not, I believe, a single tree in the town;
+but many clusters and thickets of shrubs grew in the fields and on
+the hills, and gave a pleasant appearance to the country when viewed
+at a distance. There were great numbers of houses of entertainment,
+and from the signs hung out, one might readily judge what nation
+contributes to their support. At any rate, it is amusing to see an
+American in a far distant foreign port, to read in every street such
+signs as the following: California Hotel, American Hotel, American
+House, New Bedford House, New York Restaurant, Eagle Hotel, &c. I
+went into several of them, and found them so excessively filthy, that
+despite the keenness of my appetite, I could not eat, and made up my
+mind that I must go back to the dirty bark for my dinner. But in the
+course of my rambles, I saw several of our ship's company standing at
+the door of a house of a better description than most of those I had
+seen. The walls of this house bore the imposing sign, "Tremont House."
+I could not resist the temptation to go in and inspect the premises.
+First and foremost was a large bar well stocked with liquors. But as
+this was not the principal object of my search, I passed on to the
+dining-room, where I saw a table covered with a clean white cloth. My
+resolution was formed, and I immediately booked my name for dinner. The
+hour for dining was two. But before we sit down to the table, allow me
+to introduce the proprietor of the house, and give you a description
+of his dining-room and furniture. Our landlord was a Yankee, and had
+been during many years master of a ship, till he anchored in this port,
+took a Chilian girl for his wife, and turned Boniface. We dined in a
+large square room lighted with two windows secured by iron grates, and
+set in a stone wall nearly three feet thick,--these thick walls and
+iron grates, as well as the single story in which the houses are built,
+being a necessary protection against earthquakes. The windows were
+shaded with cotton curtains, red and white. There were large, coarse,
+double doors like those of a warehouse, the floor was paved with large
+tiles, and the uncovered beams were festooned with a profusion of
+cobwebs. A pile of boxes lay in one corner, a quantity of boxes and
+barrels surmounted by an X bedstead, loaded with old saddles, occupied
+another corner, rude side-tables with more old casks and boxes under
+them, and a dining table with the clean table-cloth aforesaid, set for
+twenty-five persons, with the same number of chairs, which had been
+imported from Yankee Land,--these constituted the furniture of the
+dining-room of the Tremont House, Talcahuana, Chili. Our company were
+unanimously of the opinion that this style of furnishing an eating-room
+was open to criticism; but we were not disposed to be fastidious or
+captious; and had we been so, the display of the dinner upon the table
+would have completely done away all disposition for fault finding.
+Macaroni soup, roast beef, roast wild ducks, corned boiled beef,
+potatoes, beets, squash, bread, pudding, &c., and wine. With such a
+bill of fare before us, we quickly lost sight of the surroundings. It
+was marvelous to witness the disappearance of these luscious viands
+before twenty half starved mortals. But there was no lack of it, and
+all were satisfied. The food was of an excellent quality and well
+cooked. In fact one of our own fellow-passengers expressed a decided
+preference for this dinner to a ten quart tin pan full of scouse on
+board the James W. Paige. I made a hearty meal of roast duck, washed
+down with a copious draught of weak wine, a production of the country.
+Thus pleasantly terminated my ramble in search of a dinner. And if any
+thing could overcome my chagrin at being landed in this contemptible
+place, it would be such a dinner with such an appetite.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     Character of the Inhabitants--Agricultural Implements--Lassoing
+     Cattle--Poncho--A Covered Wagon--Wild Doves--An Earthquake--An
+     Excursion--Dogs, Women, Children, and Shells--A Scotchman and his
+     Wine--An Adventure and the Calaboose--A Chilian Musket Fished
+     Up--An Affecting Incident--Fruit Market--Leave Talcahuana--An
+     Explanation--Theft in the Cooks' Galley--Disinterested
+     Advice--Uneasiness of Mrs. L----t and Capt. J.
+
+
+I have said nothing of the character and appearance of the inhabitants
+of this town. There are about three thousand of them. On our first
+landing, I saw standing round the shops, groups of ragged, dirty,
+copper colored fellows, with a "poncho" over their shoulders, and
+a conical hat without a brim on their heads. Some were employed
+in rolling large square bundles of wool from a warehouse to the
+landing. A few were driving loaded mules and asses, and others were
+variously employed; but the greater part of them were leaning against
+the buildings, or walking idly about, as worthless looking a set of
+vagabonds as could very well be imagined. A very small number of well
+dressed men were to be seen; but these were mostly foreigners, and the
+majority of them from the United States. Several women and girls were
+seated in front of the shops selling apples and cakes. As I passed
+into the cross streets I saw a great many women seated or standing at
+their doors, or walking in the streets. Many of them were very filthy,
+though some were neatly dressed, and were rather pretty. They had dark
+complexions, fresh, florid cheeks, bright, black eyes, and black,
+glossy hair hanging down their backs in two braids. They wore nothing
+on their heads, and I did not see a bonnet in Talcahuana. They had a
+smile and a word for all strangers, but their smiles were those of the
+siren. They were all sunk in the lowest depths of moral degradation
+and pollution. Such is the general character of the people of this
+town. There are exceptions, and it is said that the married women are
+remarkably faithful to their marriage vows.
+
+I took a walk up a hill in the rear of the village in company with
+several of my fellow-passengers. Saw several men employed in plowing
+their fields and harrowing in wheat, this being their season for sowing
+grain, though I saw several fields in which the seed had sprouted
+and grown up three or four inches. The extreme rudeness of their
+farming implements surprised me. Their plow was of the most primitive
+description, being formed of two pieces of wood, the beam being long
+enough to reach to the yoke to which it was attached, and the other
+piece forming the handle and point. A pair of small oxen drew it. Their
+yoke was a straight stick laid across their necks, and fastened to
+their horns. The man held the single handle of the plow in his right
+hand and a whip in his left. He broke up the surface of the ground not
+more than two or three inches deep, and harrowed the seed in with the
+same plow instead of a harrow. The soil is exceedingly rich, or such
+cultivation would never produce a crop. The English and Americans have
+brought their best plows and other agricultural implements here, but
+they cannot persuade the Chilians to use them.
+
+On going up a steep hill, we saw a Chilian on horseback accompanied
+by half a dozen dogs in full pursuit of an ox. They passed near us. I
+saw the rider take his lasso, twirl it several times over his head,
+and throw it. I witnessed the performance with great interest; but the
+result disappointed me, and I regretted that in the first instance I
+had seen of the throwing of the lasso, it missed its aim. The Chilian
+gathered up his lasso, threw it a second time, and caught the ox by the
+horns. The Chilians are fine horsemen, and they seldom ride without a
+lasso, which they are very expert in using.
+
+I have spoken of the poncho. This is a very important article of dress
+with the Chilians, and I believe with all the Spanish population of
+America. It consists simply of a shawl either square or oblong, with a
+slit in the center, through which the head is thrust, and the poncho
+hangs loosely over the shoulders. They are made of a great variety of
+materials and patterns, some plain, and others richly striped, checked,
+or figured.
+
+On our return to the village we saw a large covered wagon drawn by
+one horse. This would not have attracted our attention had we not
+observed that the driver, instead of taking his seat in the carriage,
+rode another horse, and guided the wagon horse by means of a long
+bridle. This wagon was run daily to the city of Concepcion and back,
+and was the only carriage I saw here. It must depend on foreigners for
+patronage, for I doubt if a Chilian could be persuaded to take a seat
+in it while he had a horse to ride.
+
+At the door of the Tremont House I saw a man with several strings of
+a pretty species of little wild doves, about the size of the little
+ground dove described by Audubon. Our landlord bought them.
+
+No man can visit Chili without encountering an earthquake. At least
+I never heard of one who did. We had one of them in the night, but
+unfortunately I was asleep in my berth in the bark, and neither felt
+nor heard it. In the town the inhabitants left their houses in great
+haste, and fled to the square. The shock was not very heavy, and no
+damage was done. This town, and indeed the whole western coast of
+South America, and North America as far as California, are subject to
+frequent earthquakes, some of which have caused immense destruction
+of lives and property. Talcahuana was destroyed by one of these
+convulsions in 1835, every building but two having been thrown down.
+The city of Concepcion, nine miles distant, was also greatly injured.
+
+_July 9._ I had intended to take a ride to Concepcion, of which
+Talcahuana is the port, but being told that the roads were very muddy,
+the country flat and uninteresting, and the city dull and but little
+superior to Talcahuana in point of elegance, I gave up the visit; and
+therefore having little to do to-day, I obtained permission of the
+captain of the port to go gunning. He cautioned me not to discharge my
+gun in the town, or even to load it here. On leaving the town I passed
+up a gorge between two steep hills, at the foot of which were a dozen
+huts filled with Chilians and dogs. A little brook ran through the
+valley, and several women and girls were employed in washing clothes
+in it. There was no room for a road, nor any need of one, and the
+little foot path was all they required in their communication with the
+village. I climbed the hill, and looked down the gorge. The scene was
+very pretty, and if I could have fancied a dozen neat cottages in place
+of these thatched mud huts, it would have been beautifully picturesque.
+
+I passed over several steep hills, and down their sides through
+thickets of bushes and vines, all new to me; but without procuring any
+birds but a hawk. I saw several small birds that were strangers to me;
+but none that pleased me so much as the sight of one of our American
+robins. It gave a fresh impulse to my thoughts, and sent them at once
+to my far distant home. I was half disposed to think that I had seen
+this identical robin in some of my rambles in the fields and woods at
+home, and that it had flown this long distance, bearing a message of
+love from my dear child.
+
+After crossing several hills, I came at last to one, whose almost
+perpendicular sides overlooked an extensive marsh, which was bounded on
+one side by a bay, whose waters rolled up a broad beach of dark brown
+sand. Immense numbers of sea birds were hovering over this beach, but I
+could not approach them within gunshot. I passed a considerable number
+of huts at the foot of the hill. There were seldom less than two or
+three dogs around them, and sometimes more, besides women and children
+enough to fill them. The dogs seemed rather vicious, and often attacked
+me; but I easily drove them off except in one instance, when I was
+surrounded by three or four larger, and particularly ferocious ones,
+and had to swing my gun round pretty smartly, and was on the point of
+discharging it at them, when the women of the house came out and called
+them off.
+
+I observed many beds of shells scattered over the marsh and beach,
+and collected several very pretty specimens, but found them too much
+decayed to be worth bringing away. There was also an abundance of
+these shells imbedded in the sides of the hills, and from the state
+of preservation in which they are found, there can be no doubt the
+convulsion which upheaved these hills must have been of a comparatively
+recent date.
+
+I returned to the village in season to dine, which I did at the Tremont
+House. Upwards of twenty of our ship's company sat at the table. We had
+an excellent bill of fare, and I made a rich meal from a pie made of
+the little doves I had seen the day before.
+
+After dinner I went to the warehouse of a rich old Scotchman to buy
+some wine to use as a substitute for tea and coffee during the residue
+of our voyage. This is a weak wine, manufactured by himself, and
+is, as he says, the pure juice of the grape. A connoisseur in wines
+would not value it very highly, and indeed, it is not much better
+than old cider; but mixed with water and sugar, I find it rather a
+pleasant beverage. I bought several gallons at forty cents per gallon.
+This Scotchman had a peculiar sense of his own dignity, which would
+not permit him to wait on his customers; and I was amused to see him
+walk about the room with a very consequential air, while I filled my
+bottles from his cask. He received my account of the quantity I had
+drawn without inquiry as to its correctness, and with the greatest
+indifference.
+
+A part of our company returned to the ship at night, but many of them
+tarried on shore in the enjoyment of such delights as the town readily
+supplied. Unfortunately two of the gentlemen having imbibed a larger
+quantity of _aguardiente_ than prudence would seem to have dictated,
+and oblivious of the distance that separated them from the "land of
+the free and the home of the brave," indulged in a larger liberty than
+the regulations of the place permitted, and were rather ignominiously
+accommodated with lodgings in a calaboose, for which they were charged
+two dollars each on being liberated in the morning.
+
+One of our men, an Irishman, while fishing from the side of the bark,
+hooked up rather a queer fish--nothing less than a Chilian musket.
+It was in a tolerable state of preservation, though rather rusty. He
+scoured it up, and made a very respectable piece of it.
+
+An affecting incident occurred on shore during our stay here. Stephen
+Pierce, one of our passengers, had a brother somewhere in the Pacific
+Ocean for many years; and four years had elapsed since he had heard
+from him. He was then at Juan Fernandez. It was in part a slight
+hope of finding his brother, that induced Mr. Pierce to undertake
+this voyage. On his arrival at Talcahuana he began to make inquiries
+for him; and strangely enough the first man to whom he spoke on the
+subject, was an acquaintance of his brother's, and informed him that
+his brother had died fourteen months before in this village, and that
+his widow, who was a Chilian and a native of Talcahuana, whom he had
+found and married at Juan Fernandez, still lived here. He accompanied
+Mr. Pierce to the dwelling of the widow, introduced them, and acted as
+interpreter between them; for she had learned nothing of the English
+language. She was a very pretty woman of only eighteen years. The
+meeting was exceedingly affecting. But little time was necessary to
+satisfy the young widow of the identity of Mr. Pierce as the brother
+of her deceased husband, when she threw herself upon his neck, and
+the tears of the bereaved wife and brother were mingled in sorrow and
+sympathy at this renewed remembrance of their lost relative. She wept
+long and bitterly. After a long interview, Mr. Pierce took leave.
+But he repeated his visit to-day, and the widow accompanied him to
+the grave of his brother. She was deeply moved, for she had loved
+her husband with a strong affection. Her mother and other relatives
+manifested the kindest and most affectionate regard for Mr. Pierce,
+and this last interview, as well as the former, was one of intense
+interest. After having prolonged his stay to the last moment, he bade
+adieu to these new found relatives, never in all probability to meet
+again on earth.
+
+_July 10._ We were much disappointed in the fruit market in Talcahuana.
+There was nothing to be obtained but some apples of an inferior
+quality, tasteless and thick-skinned, and walnuts. I laid in a stock of
+walnuts, which I found very useful. Had we arrived two months earlier,
+we would have found a lot of pears, peaches, grapes, &c.
+
+Captain J. having completed taking in his stores, consisting of fresh
+beef, potatoes, flour, beans, oil, wood and water, weighed anchor at
+noon, and stood out of the harbor with a light, but fair wind. We were
+all ready to go, and no one betrayed any impatience at the shortness
+of our stay, or any wish to prolong the visit. We had seen enough
+of Talcahuana, and animated with a hope of a speedy and prosperous
+termination of our voyage, we left the coast of Chili merrily singing:
+
+    "Hi--o, and away we go,
+    Digging up gold in Francisco."
+
+We had a pleasant sail for several days, and nothing of importance
+occurred to mar our pleasures until the fourteenth of July, when
+Mr. Johnson met the passengers in the main cabin for the purpose of
+explaining his conduct in his quarrels with Julia S. He was heard
+very attentively in an address, in which he attempted to justify his
+conduct in every instance. Miss S. replied to him, contradicting some
+of his statements, and explaining others. Captain J. took part in the
+discussion, but his remarks were not calculated to restore harmony.
+Nothing was effected by the meeting, no new facts were elicited or old
+ones explained, and no change was wrought in any one's opinion.
+
+_July 17._ I have another unpleasant occurrence to record. A robbery
+was perpetrated in the cooks' galley last night, and about a hundred
+cakes of soft-tack stolen. It was reported to Captain J., who came
+into the after house and threatened to put us on hard-tack again. Many
+irritating words passed between him and some of the passengers, and he
+became so exasperated against one of them, that he seized him by the
+collar. There was great excitement all over the ship. In the height of
+the quarrel, Stephen Walker called on Captain J. and offered to find
+the bread if the captain would send a man with him to make search.
+The first mate was directed to accompany him, and in a few minutes the
+bread was found in the forecastle among the sailors, and the excitement
+was soon quieted. The captain transferred his wrath from the passengers
+to the sailors, and ordered the cooks not to serve any more soft-tack
+to them until they should inform against the thief, which they will
+be in no haste to do. It was a needless theft, for since we left
+Talcahuana they had a full allowance, that is, two and sometimes three
+cakes once a day, which is all that is allowed the passengers.
+
+My excellent friends, Captain J. and Mrs. L----t, have volunteered
+some very disinterested advice on the subject of my journal, and have
+enlightened me on the difficult question, what is proper, or rather,
+what is not proper, to record in it. Mrs. L----t thinks that all the
+little squabbles and disputes we have had, and all the scandal that
+has been so rife among us, would be improper subjects to record, and
+would prove uninteresting to the reader. She was desirous to know if my
+journal was intended for publication, and spoke very earnestly on the
+impropriety of giving the names of persons. I replied that my journal
+was nothing more than a letter, a long letter to my daughter, and was
+written for her amusement; that I did not intend it for publication,
+though some portions of it, might perhaps be made into articles for
+the newspapers; that as to what is improper to record in a journal,
+there was a great difference of opinion, and every one must judge for
+himself; and that many events of an unpleasant nature were to be found
+in every book of travels, and they very often proved interesting to the
+general reader. I remarked that though a great many books of voyages
+and travels had been published, no one had yet given to the public an
+account of the pleasures and pains, the comforts and discomforts of
+a passenger-ship round Cape Horn, and that I thought such an account
+might be received with favor by the reading public, but that in such an
+account, the propriety of giving the names of persons would depend on
+circumstances.
+
+As for Captain J., he didn't care what was said about him; he was
+independent; but he didn't want the slanders that were going about in
+the ship to get home to his wife, though he was not afraid but what he
+could satisfy her about them when he got home. He hoped I would not
+say any thing about them, and ended with a general threat intended to
+intimidate me. I made no reply to him, except that I had said nothing
+of him or Mrs. L----t in my journal, which it would be necessary to
+expunge or alter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Religious Services--A Beautiful Bird--Departure of Cape Pigeons
+     and Albatrosses--Stormy Petrels--Amusements--Harmony among
+     the Passengers--Mrs. L----t and her Child--Violence of Captain
+     J.--Our Chaplain turns Poet--Captain J.'s rest disturbed by the
+     Passengers--He threatens to blow them through--Sugar--Petty
+     Annoyances--A Rag Baby--Our Chaplain and his Revolver--
+     Change of Weather--Uncomfortable Condition of the Main
+     Cabin--Theft of Raisins--Ship's Stores--Gross Negligence--Great
+     Waste of Scouse.
+
+_July 18._ Mr. Johnson preached to a very small congregation to-day.
+The prejudice against him still continues very strong. He continues
+to justify his quarrel with Julia S., though he is opposed by the
+unanimous opinion of the passengers, who think that in striking Julia
+when she threw the stick of wood at him he violated that beautiful
+precept of Christ, "But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but
+whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other
+also." They consider such a quarrel at such a time to be a shameful
+desecration of the Sabbath, and a disgrace to himself.
+
+There was also a prayer-meeting in the afternoon. Among others, Captain
+J. gave an exhortation, in the course of which he acknowledged that he
+had not always performed his duty as a Christian during the voyage,
+asked pardon of the passengers for any wrongs he had done them, and
+promised to use his exertions to make them more comfortable during the
+remainder of the voyage.
+
+_July 20._ Crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in longitude 85° 1' west.
+
+_July 25._ I have been watching a fine bird of a new species--I mean
+new to me. As it flew round the ship, seeking for a place to alight, I
+had a pretty good opportunity to examine it. It was about two-thirds
+as large as the domestic goose, and had a straight, pointed bill.
+Excepting the feathers of the wings and tail, which were of a dark gray
+or slate color, every other part of the bird, including the head, neck,
+back and breast, the upper and under wing coverts, and tail coverts
+were of a pure glossy white. I have rarely seen so beautiful a bird.
+
+Our very intimate friends, the Cape Pigeons, have suddenly taken leave.
+There were a considerable number of them around the ship yesterday;
+to-day not one is left. Will you smile, dear reader, if I tell you that
+a slight shade of melancholy passes over me at the departure of these
+pretty birds, which have been our constant and familiar companions
+during two months, which have followed us from Brazil to Chili, round
+the stormy Cape, feeding on the little scraps of food we have thrown
+them, amusing us by their chattering and scrambling for the precious
+morsels, which they seemed to expect from us.
+
+The albatrosses left us soon after our departure from Talcahuana. My
+attempts to secure some of them, have as you have seen, been defeated.
+It has been a vexatious disappointment to me, and my fellow-passengers
+often express their regret at it, and their contempt for the littleness
+of Captain Jackson.
+
+The place of the Cape Pigeons is occupied by a little unassuming
+bird, in which I always feel much interest--a little thing of dull
+plumage and no pretensions to beauty. I mean the Stormy Petrel. The
+one we find here differs from those on the coast of the United States,
+being smaller and of a lighter plumage. It follows us in considerable
+numbers, and is quite gentle, coming close to the ship, and betraying
+very little fear of us. It does not patter the water with its feet, as
+our petrels do, but it has a singular habit of thrusting out one foot
+as it flies along, dipping it into the water, and describing a line on
+the surface sometimes two or three feet long.
+
+_July 27._ Since leaving Talcahuana our men have found a new amusement
+for the occupation of their minds, and the exercise of their ingenuity.
+We took on board some wood from that port, resembling mahogany in
+color. Out of this wood the passengers have employed themselves in
+cutting out a variety of articles, such as seals for letters, hollow
+spools for thread and needles, little boxes, knife handles, heads for
+canes, and many other things. It is amusing to witness the spirit
+with which all, young and old, with few exceptions, enter into this
+business. The decks are covered every day with their whittlings,
+and every stick of wood that can be used, is eagerly seized and
+appropriated.
+
+_July 28._ It is often said, that in long voyages, there commonly
+grows up a feeling of disgust and ill-will among the passengers
+towards each other, and that they become morose and quarrelsome,
+the natural consequence of the tedious monotony of the voyage, and
+the sameness and want of variety on board ship. I cannot say that
+our voyage thus far verifies the assertion; for though we have had
+innumerable quarrels, there has been generally a very good state of
+feeling among the passengers. This may, perhaps, be accounted for by
+the attitude of antagonism in which Captain J. placed himself towards
+us at the commencement of the voyage, (and in which he has continued
+ever since,) that may have rendered it necessary as a means of defence,
+for the passengers to maintain harmony and union among themselves.
+This necessity seems to increase as we approach the termination of
+the voyage, in consequence of the outrageous outbursts of passion,
+in which the captain indulges on every occasion, and which on every
+fresh occasion becomes more and more ungovernable. I have spoken of
+the ascendency which Mrs. L----t has obtained over him. Her influence
+has continued to increase, until she has got him entirely under her
+control. She has a noisy, ill-tempered, mischievous child, about four
+years old, whom she keeps a great portion of the time in our room in
+the after house, and who, as well as her mother is exceedingly annoying
+to us. We have remonstrated with Captain J. against this intrusion,
+but our remonstrance has only increased the evil, and now, from early
+morning till bed-time, the two are constant occupants of our cabin.
+Encouraged by the support she receives from Captain J. she has become
+very supercilious and insulting. On one occasion I removed her child
+from our door, where she was doing some mischief, when she began to
+berate me in very passionate language. But I made no reply to her.
+This only increased her rage; and she talked still more abusively.
+Getting vexed myself, I began to whistle. Worse and worse. I remarked
+that it was growing warm in this room, and she became furious. But
+having exhausted herself and receiving no reply to her tirade, she soon
+desisted. But now came the captain's turn. He had lain in his berth
+and listened to Mrs. L----t's eloquence, and became highly exasperated
+against me. So leaving his berth, he commenced a furious attack on me,
+using the most abusive language, and uttering many threats of violence.
+I replied in such language as I thought the occasion required, and I
+believe the valorous captain received very little satisfaction.
+
+_July 29._ Our chaplain has been courting the muses. Attacked with a
+severe fit of inspiration, he has for some time past been engaged in
+writing a poem. The subject, which is well calculated for the display
+of his poetical genius, is "The Voyage of the James W. Paige." He
+honored us with a public reading of a portion of the poem on deck this
+afternoon. It did not receive that applause it merited in the opinion
+of the author, for his audience were incapable of appreciating the rich
+beauties of the poem, and could not distinguish Mr. Johnson's poetry
+from ordinary prose. Much of the poem was made up of commendations of
+Captain J. and of censures of the owners of the bark.
+
+We had a clear, moonlight night, and several of the passengers, male
+and female, were on deck till a late hour. There was much noise among
+them, which disturbed the captain. He went out three times and ordered
+them off the house. The last time he was in a great passion, and
+swore that if God spared his life he would blow them through the next
+time they disobeyed his orders. The noise was stopped, and order, but
+not peace, restored. The passengers were much to blame, though their
+disobedience arose from heedlessness rather than from any intentional
+disrespect to the captain. But this threat to shoot them rankles in
+their bosoms.
+
+Sherman caught a large porpoise.
+
+_July 31._ Being prohibited the use of butter, or fat of any sort, or
+molasses, to eat with our bread, and having but a little apple-sauce
+doled out to us once a week, I have occasionally dissolved a spoonful
+of sugar to give a relish to my dry bread, and this morning the mate
+ordered the steward to remove the sugar-bowl. This order getting to
+the ears of the ladies, I have been bountifully supplied by them from
+a cask of very nice sugar in their cabin. This sugar was bought at Rio
+Janeiro by Captain J. for the special benefit of Mrs. L----t. I mention
+this little fact as a specimen of the petty annoyances to which we are
+constantly subjected by the captain and first mate, and of the friendly
+favors of which I have been the constant recipient from all the ladies,
+with one exception, during the voyage.
+
+To-day we crossed the equator in about the 108th degree of west
+longitude.
+
+_August 4._ A little affair came off this morning, in which the dignity
+and magnanimity of Captain J. were conspicuously displayed. Loud words
+were heard in the ladies' cabin at breakfast time between the captain,
+and Mrs. L----t and Miss Julia S. And what, reader, do you think was
+the subject of the dispute? _A rag baby!_ It appears that Miss Julia
+had made the baby for a little child of another passenger. It was seen
+this morning floating astern, and Miss S. supposed that Mrs. L----t's
+child had thrown it overboard. High words grew out of it. The captain,
+ever ready, threw himself into the breach between his dear friend and
+her opponent, and as we sat in our cabin we overheard the voice of this
+magnanimous commander of the ship raised in loud and angry debate about
+a rag baby!
+
+Our chaplain, Mr. Johnson, has had the precaution to take one of
+Colt's revolvers with him. He evidently is opposed to the doctrine of
+non-resistance, and is not inclined to yield up his life or his purse
+without a show, at least, of defence. His fellow-passengers, however,
+have not a very exalted opinion of his personal courage; and the fact
+that he has struck a woman in a quarrel, tends strongly to increase
+their doubts. Some little excitement prevails among us in consequence
+of a report that he has lent his revolver to Captain J., who wants it
+for the purpose of carrying his threat against his noisy passengers
+into execution. Mr. Johnson has been questioned about it, but he gives
+an evasive answer. We have a natural repugnance to being blown up, and
+cannot entertain a very friendly regard for the minister of peace, and
+man of mercy, who shall allow himself to become accessory to such a
+tragical termination of our adventures.
+
+_August 6._ We have thus far had a fine run from Talcahuana. Soon after
+leaving that port, we struck the south-east trade-winds, and for nearly
+three weeks we have sailed before an easy breeze, with our studding
+sails set, and have scarcely altered a sail during the whole time.
+This has been a season of rest for the sailors, who have had some hard
+work to perform in the course of the voyage, and whose labors have
+borne harder on them in consequence of their ignorance of the duties
+pertaining to a square-rigged vessel. They had all, I was told, with
+one exception, shipped as ordinary seamen, though some of them had been
+fraudulently entered as able seamen.
+
+But now we are beginning to find a change of weather and variable
+winds. The atmosphere has become very hot, and heavy showers of rain
+are pouring down upon us. There is also considerable thunder, though we
+have had but few heavy peals. The wind is light and continually veering
+from point to point. We are apprehensive of being becalmed, and feel
+not a little impatience and anxiety at every unfavorable change of the
+weather.
+
+Our ship is uncomfortable enough in any climate or weather with her
+crowd of passengers; but it is peculiarly so in this Torrid Zone.
+At the request of an old man, Mr. Carlow, I have been down to take
+a look at the main cabin. I found the air very hot and oppressive,
+and I was soon covered with perspiration. Some portions of the room
+were dark, there being no means of lighting it, but by the hatches
+and a few little dead-lights in the deck. They were now prohibited
+the use of the lamps they had made for themselves, because the smoke
+was found to annoy Mrs. L----t, into whose state-room a portion of
+it escaped. The only ventilation which this cabin received, was also
+through the hatches, and that was obstructed by the houses that were
+built over them. The floor was damp and dirty, and I was told that it
+had never been cleansed but by the passengers themselves. An offensive
+odor filled the room, which was to be expected from the number of the
+occupants, and the want of ventilation. There were twenty-eight berths
+in this cabin, occupied by fifty-two passengers. It was impossible for
+them all to pass the hot nights in such a stifling atmosphere, and the
+poor old man's eyes moistened as he told me that he was obliged to
+leave his berth, and pass his nights wherever he could find a place to
+rest on deck.
+
+_August 9._ Captain J. has just discovered that a cask and a half,
+or one hundred and fifty pounds of raisins have been abstracted from
+the store-room. He has made rigid inquiries, but has not elicited any
+evidence against the purloiners; nor is there any probability that he
+will. The excuse for this theft seems to have been, that a cask of
+raisins had been previously opened for the use of the occupants of the
+ladies' cabin, and it was thought that justice required a more equal
+distribution of them among the whole ship's company.
+
+There has been gross negligence in the care of the ship's stores, and
+great waste and loss of many articles of provisions, which should have
+been used. A few days since an examination was ordered, and three
+casks of decayed potatoes, that had been shipped at Frankfort, were
+discovered and thrown overboard. Many messes, which have been cooked up
+for the passengers in the course of the voyage, and which they could
+not eat, however hungry they may have been, have been disposed of in
+the same manner. How many pans of the richest sort of scouse the
+birds and the fishes are indebted to the bark James W. Paige for, it
+is impossible to tell. Much of the oil has been carelessly wasted, and
+many a long evening has been passed in the dark for want of it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+     An Arbitrary Prohibition--Card Playing and Checker
+     Playing--Dancing--Treachery of Mr. Johnson--Some Passengers--A
+     Comical Character, and a Pugnacious Character--A Beautiful
+     Bird--Closing the Hatches--A Question of Jurisdiction--The Hatches
+     Re-opened--A Sudden Transformation--Neglected Duties of the
+     Chaplain--His Influence with the Captain.
+
+
+I have spoken of the amusement the passengers have had in making wooden
+trinkets from the wood taken on board at Talcahuana. The captain and
+first mate have been made the recipients of many of these toys; but
+to-day they have issued an order prohibiting any further manufacture of
+them. The passengers all remonstrated against the arbitrary order, but
+were obliged to submit; for the captain has control of the wood.
+
+One of the principal sources of amusement during the voyage has been
+card playing. It has helped many, who had no other occupation or
+source of amusement, to pass their time pleasantly; and to others it
+has proved an agreeable relaxation. Much mischief has doubtless been
+prevented by it, and many a quarrel avoided. I have not heard of an
+unpleasant dispute or altercation from card playing since we set sail,
+though there are seldom less than six or eight companies engaged in it
+during the pleasant weather. Several packs of cards were included in my
+outfit, but though I have not, in a single instance, had occasion to
+use them myself, they have nevertheless, done good service. Captain J.
+has often threatened to break up this wicked amusement, but I think he
+has not dared to attempt it. Though very strong in his denunciations
+of card playing, there are other games which meet his approbation. He
+has himself made a checker-board, and spends many a leisure moment in
+playing checkers with Mrs. L----t.
+
+Still another source of amusement with many of the passengers is
+dancing. We have two fiddlers on board the ship, and are therefore
+well supplied with the necessary music. There is a space between the
+two houses covering a few square feet, and another space still smaller
+between the forward house and the windlass, where a small number of
+persons can crowd through a figure in a dance, and these spaces have
+been sometimes used for that purpose. I have attempted to take this
+kind of exercise, but in such a circumscribed space and such a rolling
+ballroom, I have found the amusement any thing but amusing.
+
+From what I have already recorded of Mr. Johnson, it will be seen that
+he has been guilty of some indiscretions (to call them by no harsher
+name) that are not very creditable to him as a man or a Christian. I
+have now to state a fact, which proves him to be destitute of common
+honesty. At his particular request I had lent him several sheets of
+my journal, in which were some passages reflecting on the conduct of
+Captain J. and the first mate. These passages, he gave me his word,
+should not be repeated nor revealed. I heard no more about it for
+several days and until last night, when the reverend gentleman came
+deliberately to me, and said, that considering all the circumstances of
+the case, he felt it his duty, notwithstanding his promise, to repeat
+those obnoxious passages to the captain and mate. He asked me if I had
+any objection. I replied that it could answer no good purpose; that
+he very well knew that the captain had repeatedly threatened me with
+personal violence, and this would only serve to increase his rage,
+and, perhaps, furnish him with a pretext for putting his threats into
+execution; and that I would not consent to the disclosure. To all my
+remonstrances he only replied that his duty impelled him to the course
+he was about to pursue, and that his conscience would no longer permit
+him to remain silent. So he left me to perform his duty and quiet his
+conscience by breaking his word and violating his promise, and making a
+revelation, which could answer no other purpose than to make mischief,
+to increase a personal animosity, which was already bitter enough, to
+prolong a quarrel which it should have been his duty as a Christian
+minister to allay, and to stir up strife when he should have endeavored
+to promote conciliation. "Blessed are the peace-makers."
+
+It will be thought that we have a jumble of strange characters in our
+company, and so indeed we have. Perhaps I have occupied too much space
+with the bad portion of them. Perhaps, too, I have attached too much
+importance to the little scrapes and wrangles, of which I have given
+so many accounts. One might suppose that I had treasured up every
+quarrel that has occurred during the voyage, and that I delighted in
+telling them. But it is not so. I would give a correct impression of
+the voyage, its pleasures and pains; and the record of a portion of our
+disputes is necessary to this end. But I have omitted more than I have
+recorded, and I have related others in the fewest words into which I
+could condense them.
+
+In addition to the ladies whose names have appeared in the progress of
+this narrative, is Mrs. A. G. B., who is going to join her husband in
+Stockton. She is a very quiet, and I believe a religious woman. She
+passes a great part of her time in her state-room, and keeps entirely
+aloof from all the bickerings that are of such frequent occurrence in
+the ladies' cabin. She comes on deck after supper to take the air.
+I have occasionally passed an hour very agreeably with her, enjoying
+a pleasant sunset and twilight, or talking of friends at home. Her
+daughter Mary is a pretty girl of seventeen, who reads French, and has
+a variety of accomplishments. Mrs. B. has two sons on board, one a boy,
+and the other, a married man, whose wife and daughter, a sprightly
+little girl of three years, accompany him.
+
+One of the passengers in the main cabin is a deaf-mute, Elisha
+Osgood, a cabinet-maker. He gave our chaplain a mild reproof for his
+belligerent propensities a few days since. Learning that Mr. J. had a
+revolver, he proposed to buy it. Mr. J. refused to sell it; whereupon
+Osgood wrote upon his slate, "You had better sell your revolver, and
+buy a bible."
+
+Mr. Gardner, the second mate, is a clever fellow, and is endowed with
+much more intelligence than the first mate, and is more popular with
+the passengers and crew, though far from being a favorite with the
+captain.
+
+There is a quiet good-natured fellow among us, by the name of John F.
+Dolliff, who loves sport, and is a practical joker. He is possessed
+of kind, humane feelings withal, and I am indebted to him for many a
+glass of lemonade, given me in the former part of our voyage, at a
+time when I was suffering the most tormenting thirst from seasickness.
+Dolliff's voice bears a great resemblance to that of Captain J., which
+has given rise to some sport among us. He sometimes orders the stewards
+to trim the lamp in the binnacle, calls out to the man at the wheel to
+tell him how the ship heads, and gives a variety of orders, which are
+generally obeyed. One dark night, after the captain had turned in, he
+put on his--the captain's--coat and hat, and walked out. He called to
+the mate, asked several questions about the wind and weather, which
+were all respectfully answered, and then directed him to reef the
+top-sails. This order, absurd enough under the circumstances, was not
+given in nautical style, and while the perplexed mate hesitated, some
+one who was in the secret laughed, and betrayed the joke.
+
+T. W. Dolliff, a cousin of the above-named, is, or rather was, the
+most pugnacious man among us, though he exhibited no indications of
+his pugnacity on board the bark. He was said to be pretty well covered
+with scars, which he had received in numerous combats. At Talcahuana he
+fell in with a bully, who was imbued with a great hatred of Yankees,
+and who challenged any and all who were present to fight him. Dolliff
+had not had a fight for many months, and was really pining for a little
+amusement of that sort. This opportunity to indulge in his favorite
+recreation was too good to be lost, and he readily accepted the
+challenge. A little space in the room was cleared for the combatants.
+They took their places, and after a moment's maneuvering, the fellow
+made a pass at Dolliff, which he parried, and at the same instant he
+dealt him a blow that laid him sprawling on the floor. The bully got up
+and prepared for a second encounter, which ended in the same manner.
+Unwilling to yield, he made a third attempt, and a third time he
+measured his length upon the floor, when he wisely gave up the contest,
+acknowledged the superiority of the Yankee, and treated the company.
+
+Within three weeks Dolliff has been attacked with rheumatic pains
+attended with fever, which have laid him up. He has been removed from
+the main cabin, where he must have died, had he remained there, and a
+berth has been provided for him in our room. Every thing that can be,
+is done to make him comfortable; but our ship is badly supplied with
+necessaries for the sick. He will, in all probability, have a lingering
+illness, and he must be taken to a hospital in San Francisco,
+California, of which he has a great dread.
+
+_August 14._ One of our passengers, Mr. Gould, has generously treated
+us to a rich pound-cake. His wife made it in Bangor. It was put into a
+tin box and soldered up, and on being opened, was found as fresh and
+sweet as when first baked.
+
+_August 15._ No religious services to-day. There are many conjectures
+as to the cause of this omission of his duty by our chaplain, the most
+plausible of which is, his consciousness of the strong disgust which
+his recent treachery, falsehood, and attempt at mischief-making have
+excited.
+
+We occasionally see a beautiful bird making its flight high above us,
+but seldom coming near the ship. Its plumage as seen at a distance is
+pure white, its head resembles that of a dove, its neck slender and
+delicate, and with a tail composed of two long, pointed, and flowing
+white feathers, and wings long and slender, it floats through the air
+with a gracefulness peculiar to itself, and excelling that of any other
+bird I have seen. This is the Tropic Bird, (_Phæton phoenicurus_.)
+The long taper tail feathers have given the sailors a hint for a name,
+and they call it "The Marlin-spike."
+
+_August 17._ Crossed the Tropic of Cancer in longitude 127° west. The
+mate signalized the day by closing the hatches over the main cabin.
+The reason assigned for this act was a quarrel at breakfast between an
+Irishman and one of the stewards, which disturbed the mate's repose.
+Much excitement prevailed in consequence of this act, and the fifty
+men shut up in that "black hole" remonstrated against the injustice
+of being punished for a little squabble, in which only two of their
+number were engaged. Finding their arguments were of no avail with the
+mate, they carried their case to the captain. To their remonstrances
+he replied that this case was beyond his control; that he commanded
+the after-part of the ship, and the mate the forward part; that this
+hatchway, being in the mate's room, was under his sole command; and
+that he, the captain, had no more authority to order it to be taken
+off, than the mate had to command him on the quarter-deck. All this
+appeared very much like nonsense to our land lubbers, who doubted if
+the maritime law recognized a division of authority, which seemed to
+them so utterly absurd and ridiculous. At this point of the discussion,
+Mr. Tyler, one of the passengers, remarked that he had hitherto kept
+aloof from all the wrangles we had had, but that he should not remain
+quiet under this arbitrary act. He assured the captain that if the
+hatches were not removed, there would be a greater row than we had ever
+witnessed on board this bark. But neither the captain nor mate would
+make any concession, and it was determined by the passengers that they
+should have no sleep as long as the cause of their disquiet remained.
+There was a prospect of a stormy night between decks, and extensive
+preparations were made for a musical concert, which would not have been
+very conducive to slumber, when our brave officers, thinking they would
+find the contest an unequal one, suddenly and wisely resolved to remove
+the hatches, the consequence of which was an immediate restoration of
+peace.
+
+_August 22._ A sudden and wonderful transformation has been wrought
+in our chaplain. From being very reserved in his intercourse with the
+passengers, he has all at once become exceedingly familiar. I have been
+surprised within two or three days past to see him engaged in high
+frolics with the men, scuffling, knocking off hats, throwing ropes over
+the men's heads, running and jumping like a boy over the houses and
+decks, and playing a hundred capers and pranks, which have attracted
+much attention, and excited not a little ridicule throughout the ship.
+The cause of this sudden change in the good parson is so palpable,
+that very few do not understand it; and the lost popularity he is so
+desirous to win back will scarcely be recovered by this means. His
+duties as our chaplain, which have never been arduous, are now wholly
+neglected; and well they may be, for very few will listen to him. He
+began his labors with us after the first two or three stormy weeks,
+with a prayer once a week, besides a sermon on Sundays. These were
+well attended, a large majority of our company being present. After
+a lapse of several weeks, the week-day prayer was omitted. Then the
+Sunday service was suspended for a time in consequence of his fight
+with Julia S. He attempted to renew his meetings in the main cabin,
+but received a hint that his services would not be acceptable to the
+occupants of that part of the ship. However, when warm weather returned
+he preached on the house-top, though to very small audiences, until the
+perpetration of his treachery with me, which has brought such a load of
+odium upon him, that he has not dared to attempt to preach since. He
+has proved an artful and dishonest man, and has exercised a pernicious
+influence over our weak-minded and ignorant captain, and has been his
+counsellor, adviser and supporter in nearly all the quarrels in which
+he has been engaged with his passengers. That his influence in this
+bark is confined to the captain, a single fact will prove. He some time
+since got up a certificate for signatures, the purport of which was to
+plaster over Mrs. L----t's conduct. Not a passenger would sign it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     Head Winds--The Dusky Albatross--Tacking Ship--Fishing for
+     Birds--Amusements of the Mate and Passengers--A Poet--Fair
+     Winds--A Porpoise--A Fight in the Main Cabin--My Journal--Opinions
+     of Mr. Johnson--Meeting in the Main Cabin--Schools of
+     Porpoises--Narrow Escape from Shipwreck--An Act of Charity.
+
+
+_August 24._ Our voyage is becoming prolonged to an excessively
+wearisome duration. More than a month ago we calculated on arriving at
+San Francisco in ten days; and with a fair wind we could have performed
+the voyage in that time. Now, after having trebled it, we seem as
+far from port as ever. During the last fortnight the winds have been
+blowing from the north-east, and we have sailed sharp on the wind, in
+expectation of falling in with the north-west trades, which are said
+to prevail in these latitudes. But we have not yet found them. We are
+now about nine hundred miles west of the coast of California, and in a
+latitude only four degrees north of that of San Francisco. We have not
+seen a sail for six weeks, and we begin to feel that we are
+
+    "Alone, alone, all, all alone,
+    Alone on the wide, wide sea."
+
+And yet, we are not quite alone. A small number of my friends, the
+birds, still hover around us, and accompany us in our wanderings over
+the deep, even at this great distance from the land. A few days since
+an albatross was seen flying near us. I watched it and soon saw that it
+was the Dusky Albatross, (_Diomedia fusca_,) figured by Audubon from a
+specimen obtained by Dr. Townsend on the coast of Oregon. It was soon
+joined by another and another, and to-day, six or eight of them are
+following us.
+
+We suffer much weariness, lassitude, and drowsiness, consequent on our
+long voyage and almost total inactivity. One circumstance has operated
+very favorably for our comfort. After less than a week of the hot
+weather of which I have spoken, there came a sudden and most agreeable
+change. The sky became obscured with clouds, and has remained so the
+greater part of the time since, and the air grew cooler, so much so
+that our overcoats became necessary, and the passengers, who had been
+driven from the main cabin, were enabled to return to their berths
+again.
+
+_August 27._ Our first inquiry this morning was the same we have often
+and anxiously made of late, "How does she head?" And the same answer we
+have received for the last fortnight was given, "About north-west." The
+wind, however, was light, and we were not quite hopeless of a change.
+An hour or two was passed in watching the signs, for the weather had
+become very unsteady--when we heard from the captain, who had taken
+the helm, the order, "Ready, 'bout." The sound was most cheering. We
+had been standing on one course for a long time without making any
+approach towards our destined port, but rather going farther from it,
+and striving the while to gain a position, or rather, a wind, that
+would carry us in. And this intention of tacking ship was an indication
+of the captain's opinion, that the favorable moment had arrived.
+The sailors stationed themselves at the proper ropes, and the mate
+responded, "All ready, sir." "Hard a-lee!" sung out the captain, as
+he put down the helm, and brought the ship into the wind, the sails
+shivering and flapping with considerable violence. Presently they
+began to fill on the other side, when he gave the order, "Maintop sail
+haul," and instantly the ropes rattled through the blocks, and the main
+sail, maintop sail and maintop-gallant sail swung steadily and at once
+round the masts to the other side of the ship. Soon the order, "Let go
+and haul," was given, when the foresails were swung into their proper
+positions, and we were sailing on our course for San Francisco.
+
+Tacking ship is a beautiful evolution, and it is for that reason that
+I have described it, using in this instance the necessary nautical
+terms, though I have generally endeavored to avoid them. It is also a
+performance requiring some little skill and practice. Our mate on one
+occasion made three attempts to tack, and failed, and was obliged at
+last to "wear ship," that is, to turn the ship round with the wind,
+thereby losing considerable ground. This is considered an unseamanlike
+maneuver, and it subjected our mate to some ridicule among the sailors.
+
+The indications of a favorable wind did not continue long, and in less
+than half an hour we were obliged to put about again, and stand on
+our old course. In this manner it continued for several days, veering
+from point to point, between north-east and south-west, and forcing us
+continually to change the course of the ship, while we made very little
+progress towards port.
+
+The Dusky Albatrosses became very familiar, and Sherman drew one of
+them on deck, but the captain followed it closely round the ship, and
+at last ordered it to be thrown overboard.
+
+For the information of those who are not familiar with the science of
+ornithology, and who may be curious to know how we could draw large
+birds into the ship with a hook and line without injuring them, I will
+say, that the upper mandible of many of these birds is recurved or
+bent downwards beyond the lower mandible, forming a hook sufficiently
+strong to hold the weight of the bird, and the fish-hook catches it by
+this curved beak as it seizes the bait. The hook does not penetrate the
+beak, but its sharp point prevents it slipping off so long as the bird
+holds back.
+
+Our mate amuses himself with drawing coarse caricatures of the
+passengers; and they in turn retaliate by writing doggerel verses on
+the mate. This leads me to say that one of our sailors has turned
+out to be a poet, and if there is any thing in a name that entitles
+a man to this honor, his claim is certainly good. His name is James
+Montgomery. His verses, though not quite equal to those by the author
+of the "Wanderer of Switzerland," are not altogether destitute of
+poetic merit; and had he an opportunity to cultivate his talent,
+he would probably learn to write poetry. The mate, unable to write
+himself, offered Montgomery a dollar to write a lampoon on one of the
+passengers. But he scorned to do so dirty a job for such a paltry
+bribe, or for so low a fellow.
+
+_September 1._ We have at last got a fair wind, and during the whole
+day sailed directly on our course without tacking. Our spirits begin to
+revive, and we are not quite hopeless of reaching port.
+
+_September 3._ Fair winds continue to favor us, and we are within four
+hundred miles of California. A very few days will, in all probability,
+find us on terra firma again, when we shall part, many of us to meet no
+more. I would that these few remaining days might be spent in peace and
+harmony among us. But fate orders it otherwise. My enemies, the captain
+and mate, since the treacherous disclosure made by the chaplain, have
+been growing more and more acrimonious in their hatred, and they seldom
+omit an opportunity to insult me. An instance occurred this evening.
+But I forbear.
+
+Sherman caught a porpoise last night, and cooked a portion of it
+to-day. We ate it rather greedily, and all thought it excellent. Our
+long voyage, coarse fare, and frequent hunger, have relieved us of many
+fastidious whims about food, and we have learned to eat and to relish
+some things, which it would be difficult for us to swallow at home.
+These porpoises throw out a sort of phosphorescent light, by which they
+are readily seen in the night. This one was taken at nine o'clock of a
+cloudy evening.
+
+_September 4._ A fight occurred at breakfast in the main cabin between
+an Irishman of fifty-nine, the oldest man in the ship, and an American,
+not much his junior. The Yankee received a cut on the ear with a
+case-knife, and he knocked down his antagonist and gave him some severe
+bruises. Our ship is becoming a miniature pandemonium.
+
+My journal has become a source of much disquietude to Captain J. and
+Mrs. L----t. It has excited some interest among the passengers, and I
+have been repeatedly requested to publish an account of the voyage. I
+refused at first, but after many solicitations I so far yielded as to
+promise that if I had time to revise my journal after our arrival at
+San Francisco, I would publish it. A subscription was immediately got
+up, and one hundred and twenty copies subscribed for. The captain and
+Mr. Johnson exerted all their influence to prevent the passengers from
+putting their names to the paper, but they had the mortification to
+find that their opposition only tended to increase the subscription.
+Mr. Johnson made himself particularly busy in the matter. He urged
+me to read my manuscript to the ship's company. Not that he felt any
+personal interest in it, O, no! But he thought that justice to Captain
+Jackson, whose character I had assailed, and to the passengers, who
+knew not what they were subscribing for, required me to read it. I did
+not.
+
+Hints had been repeatedly given me, that the captain intended to seize
+the obnoxious manuscript. Consultations had been held upon the subject,
+and it was stated--and I have no doubt of the fact--that Mr. Johnson
+had expressed the opinion, that the captain was fully authorized by
+law to break open my trunk, and seize it. Uncertain as to what these
+ignorant madmen might be tempted to do, I deposited the journal with a
+friend in the main cabin, where it remained till I left the ship.
+
+_September 5._ This is the last Sabbath we expect to spend on board the
+bark, and as we expect to separate in two or three days, a meeting was
+held in the main cabin, the object of which was to settle disputes and
+restore harmony between the officers and passengers.
+
+It proved, however, a failure. Several short addresses were made,
+one by the captain in a spirit of defiance, and one by Mr. Johnson,
+defending his career on board the bark; a prayer was offered, and a
+parting hymn sung, and we broke up with very little change of feeling.
+
+Immense schools of porpoises passed to-day, and Sherman struck and
+secured one of the largest we have seen. Many of the men have employed
+themselves in preparing the skin for belts. A whale passed us in
+the afternoon, coming close along-side the bark. And to keep up the
+excitement, a sail was discovered on our starboard bow, the only one we
+have seen for fifty-three days.
+
+_September 6._ We were aroused this morning at four o'clock by the
+startling cry of "breakers." Our ship instantly became a scene of
+confusion, and the passengers rushed on deck from every quarter.
+I arose at the first cry and went out. And there, within fifteen
+or twenty rods lay the land, the sea roaring loudly, and breaking
+in foaming surges on the shore. The helm had been put down, and
+fortunately the ship came round in season to escape. A minute's delay
+would have wrecked us. Or had the ship missed coming in stays, as she
+has often done during the voyage, nothing could have saved her. There
+was at the time a thick fog, which accounts for our near approach to
+the breakers before they were discovered. The sailor on the lookout
+heard the roaring of the breakers for some time before he discovered
+them, but attributed it to some other cause; for according to the
+captain's reckoning we were still far from land. Nothing could be
+more cheering after our long voyage than to behold the land of our
+destination, but this sudden introduction to it was any thing but
+agreeable.
+
+And now having escaped the perils of shipwreck, and hoping to arrive in
+port to-day, we are closing our voyage with an act of charity to our
+fellow-passenger, Dolliff, who, though convalescent, is still unable to
+support himself. A considerable sum is being raised for him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Whales--Sunshine--The Pacific Ocean and Tom Moore--Wormy Bread and
+     Impure Water--A Pilot--Arrival in the Harbor of San Francisco--The
+     City--Dismantled Ships--My last Visit to the Bark--Statement and
+     Counter Statement--Angry Remonstrance--Mr. Spring and his two
+     Journals--Final Adieu to the James W. Paige.
+
+
+We beat all day to the north against a head wind, and made but slow
+progress. We strove to wear away the tedium of the day by looking
+at the land, and watching the birds and the whales, of which last a
+considerable number were seen near the ship, sometimes three or four
+together. We saw one of these monstrous animals plunge down into the
+water, throwing his tail above the surface as he made his plunge, and
+in a moment after, come up again with such force and rapidity as to
+carry his ponderous body entirely into the air. Such an immense body,
+as it came down again into the water, could not fail to produce a great
+commotion. This act of leaping out of the water seemed to be performed
+in a similar manner to that of the sturgeon and smaller fish in our
+rivers and lakes. They frequently came close to the ship, playing by
+its sides, plunging down on one side, and coming up on the other. Among
+the birds, were a number I had not seen before, and several Brown
+Pelicans.
+
+The weather was cold, but after a dark, foggy morning, the sun came
+out, and the sky continued unclouded during the day. This was very
+cheering, for we had had scarcely an hour's sunshine during many
+weeks. What a contrast between the Pacific Ocean as I find it, and the
+picture I had formed of it. I had even associated it with unclouded
+skies and genial warmth, with mild breezes and gently undulating
+waters. I had dreamed of it as "The Blue Summer Ocean," in which Moore
+might have found "The Bright Little Isle," of which he so sweetly sings
+in one of his sweetest songs. And there is many an isle scattered
+over this great waste of waters, which would almost answer to Moore's
+description,
+
+    "Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers,
+    And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers,"
+
+many a spot, which air, climate, soil, vegetable productions, and
+beautiful scenery have rendered as perfect elysiums, as nature,
+unassisted by art, can produce.
+
+But leaving Moore, poetry, sunshine, and every pleasant thought, let
+us once more come back to the unwholesome realities of the bark. In
+addition to the many luxuries with which our palates had been regaled
+during the voyage, we had for several weeks past been feasting on wormy
+bread--not myself, but my fellow-passengers. My disgust at hard-bread
+had become so intense, that I could not swallow it, good or bad. I
+think I must have starved had I been confined to it. But being on good
+terms with the stewards and cooks, I had found means to obtain an extra
+allowance of soft-tack, sufficient for my urgent wants. Few of the
+passengers were so fortunate. One of them, finding no escape from the
+wormy hard-bread, strove to make a little sport out of it, by declaring
+that these living vermin had imparted to the bread a peculiar _lively_
+flavor, which was very palatable.
+
+Then, again, as the supply of water we had taken in at Talcahuana,
+became exhausted, we were obliged to resort to the old stock from
+Frankfort. Some of this was so excessively filthy, and had acquired
+such a nauseous, such a putrid taste and smell, that several of
+the passengers who were far from being troubled with weak stomachs,
+actually vomited on drinking it. Even boiling it, and making tea or
+coffee with it would not purify it. But we had better water on board,
+and after many remonstrances and altercations with the captain, we got
+it.
+
+_September 7._ We took a pilot on board in the morning. He brought a
+paper or two, which we read with great interest, and it will be readily
+believed that we were most eager in our inquiries for news.
+
+Among other objects that attracted our attention as we approached
+the harbor, was a great sand bank stretching a mile along the coast,
+and extending a considerable distance inland. It was the largest bed
+of sand I had ever seen, and was a very fair specimen of a miniature
+desert. Several large rocks scattered along the coast presented a
+lively appearance, from the multitude of sea birds that covered them;
+and one of them attracted our particular notice, being perforated with
+a hole, sufficiently large, I thought, to admit the passage of a boat
+through it.
+
+We now ascertained that the place where we so narrowly escaped
+shipwreck, was near Monterey, about sixty miles south of San Francisco.
+
+We entered the harbor in the afternoon, and anchored about a mile from
+the city. And thus ended the voyage of the James W. Paige, one hundred
+and fifty-eight days from the day we set sail from Frankfort.
+
+A large fleet of boats surrounded the ship as soon as we anchored,
+and I took passage in one of them in company with several others, and
+after passing through a wilderness of ships, steamers, and dismantled
+hulks, we landed in the city. Our first business on landing was at the
+Post-Office, where I was made happy by the reception of a package of
+letters informing me that all my friends were alive and well.
+
+We then sought a hotel, and, what we least expected in California,
+the first one we tried was a temperance house, the "United States
+Temperance House." After tea I took a walk with J. Tyler up Telegraph
+Hill, whence we had a fine view of the city and harbor. On our return
+we went into several gambling-saloons. These were large rooms, richly
+furnished, and supplied with large tables, loaded with heaps of
+glittering gold and silver, to be staked in the various games, for
+which each table was appropriated. Hundreds of people crowded into
+these saloons, many of them with no other motive than mere curiosity,
+but others with the foolish hope of filling their pockets from those
+tempting heaps of coins.
+
+A peculiar feature in the harbor of San Francisco at this time, and
+one that struck me very forcibly on our first approach, was the great
+number of dismantled ships that lay thickly scattered around it.
+These ships had a very old, ruinous, antiquated appearance, and at
+first sight, gave me an impression, that this new-born city had been
+inhabited for ages, and was now going to ruin. Most of them have their
+lower masts standing, and supported by a few ropes and chains. A large
+portion of them had been deserted by their crews on the first outbreak
+of the gold excitement, and were recklessly left to their destruction,
+while men and officers rushed blindly and wildly to the mines. These
+ships have, however, been made subservient to a valuable purpose,
+having been converted into store-ships by the merchants. Some of them
+had doors cut in their sides, with short flights of steps from the
+water. Some were run aground near the shore, and wharfs and streets
+were built around them, where, with houses erected on them they could
+scarcely be distinguished from the surrounding stores.
+
+_September 8._ I went on board the bark for my baggage. The captain,
+mate, and a large portion of the passengers were ashore. On going
+into the after house, my eye accidentally caught a letter which was
+addressed to Captain Jackson, expressing great thankfulness for his
+kind and gentlemanly treatment of the passengers, and charging the
+blame of disputes and quarrels to the passengers. It was written by
+Mr. Johnson and signed by Mr. Spring and several others, who were well
+aware of its utter falsity. Knowing that it was intended to counteract
+the numerous statements, which would be made at home prejudicial to
+Captain Jackson, I seized a pen and wrote a certificate, as near as I
+can remember, in the following words:
+
+     "Bark JAMES W. PAIGE, Sept. 8, 1852.
+
+     Whereas, a paper highly laudatory of Captain Jackson has been
+     circulated for signatures on board this bark, a regard for truth
+     impels us to say, that the conduct of Captain Jackson during
+     the voyage just ended has been highly arbitrary, ungentlemanly,
+     insulting and abusive, and that even the female passengers have,
+     in many instances, been subjected to the grossest abuse from him."
+     During the few moments I was engaged in getting signatures to
+     this paper, Mr. Spring, who was standing near, overheard me read
+     it. It gave him great offense, and he remonstrated very strongly
+     with me against the terms in which it was expressed. He said I had
+     virtually charged him and others with falsehood, and urged me to
+     withdraw or modify my statement. I refused to do either; and this
+     good man, with whom I had had the most friendly relations during
+     the voyage, now quivered with passion, while he intimated that a
+     prosecution for libel would be instituted against me. Mr. Spring
+     was liable to the charge of duplicity in signing that paper, so
+     full of flattery and falsehood; and his chief occupation during
+     the voyage was marked by a singularity, to say the least
+     of it, not quite compatible with a strict regard for truth. He had
+     kept a journal of the voyage, and noted the occurrences of each
+     day much more carefully and minutely than I did. He often read
+     passages from his journal to the passengers, and it was well
+     known that his opinion of the captain coincided with that of a
+     large majority of the company. He had been several times chosen
+     on committees to remonstrate with Captain J. on our treatment and
+     fare. But towards the latter part of the voyage it was observed
+     that a friendly understanding had grown up between him and the
+     captain, which gave rise to many conjectures as to the cause.
+     But whatever may have been the cause, the effect of this newly
+     formed friendship was a revision of Mr. Spring's journal, or,
+     more properly speaking, a rejection of it, and the writing of a
+     new one, in which every thing offensive to Captain Jackson, and
+     all occurrences of an unpleasant nature, in which the captain
+     had acted a part, were omitted, and only the more agreeable
+     transactions and events were recorded; in fact, changing the true
+     and unvarnished record of the voyage, which he had made with so
+     much labor, for a smooth and sunny picture, which, though it might
+     not be chargeable with actual falsehood in its details, would,
+     nevertheless, convey to the reader a grossly false impression of
+     the character of Captain Jackson, and the annoyances and vexations
+     attending the voyage. This revision of his journal cost him much
+     time, though not so much as might, on first thought, have been
+     expected. So many occurrences were necessarily omitted, that for
+     every sheet he had at first written, a page now sufficed. His
+     original journal, which I would have given a dollar to possess,
+     he threw overboard. His new one was to be forwarded to a paper in
+     Calais, Me., for publication.
+
+I obtained twenty-five signatures to my paper in a few minutes, and
+then, gathering up my baggage, I bade a final adieu to the James
+W. Paige with a regret, which I think was remarkable only for its
+minuteness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our voyage is ended, but not quite our book. Many incidents of an
+unpleasant nature, which had occurred on the voyage, have been omitted,
+and the omission has somewhat shortened the book. The following
+extracts from the continuation of my journal through a long sojourn
+on the Pacific Coast, are appended as a substitute for the rejected
+passages.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CALIFORNIA SCENES.
+
+
+
+
+Scenes in Sacramento.
+
+
+_May, 1853._ California in early times offered innumerable scenes
+partaking of the ludicrous and the horrible, and a person in search of
+either, might have his taste and his curiosity gratified at almost any
+moment. The Horse Market in Sacramento was the great resort of every
+imaginable description of characters, and such a scene of uproar and
+confusion as it presented at a public sale is utterly indescribable.
+There were some fine sycamores standing there before the Great Fire
+which destroyed the greater portion of the city. They had been found
+very useful for suspending thieves and robbers in the days of lynch
+law. After the fire, the trees were felled, and the stumps afforded
+excellent stands for the auctioneers. At one of the public sales
+of horses I saw four auctioneers stationed upon these stumps. The
+full strength of their lungs was called into exercise, and they were
+vociferating in their loudest tones, each one striving to outdo
+the others in noise, and all extolling the various merits of their
+respective animals with an eloquence peculiar to horse-jockeys, while
+their assistants, mounted on the horses, were riding around with a
+speed and a carelessness that threatened death to half the multitude
+that thronged the streets.
+
+While this scene was enacting, a fight was taking place in a
+neighboring gambling-house between two combatants who were seen rushing
+from the house followed by an excited multitude. One of the duelists,
+bruised and bloody, was retreating from the other, who followed close
+upon him, dealing repeated blows, which the poor fellow sometimes
+turned to parry, while hastening to make his escape. The crowd followed
+on, shouting like demons, and increasing in numbers at every step.
+"Oh, that is dreadful!" exclaimed a horror-struck young man, who had
+but recently arrived in California, and had not been initiated in its
+manners and customs. The throng of excited brutes at length came to a
+stand; the chase and the battle were ended; the victory was won, and
+the defeated combatant was taken to a surgeon who seemed to be the only
+one benefitted by the affray, and who exclaimed in a tone of charming
+sensibility: "Let them fight to their hearts' content, if they will
+only employ me to repair their broken heads!"
+
+Scarcely was this affair ended, when a loud shout was heard down the
+street, and we beheld a stampede of Spanish cattle followed by several
+herdsmen on horseback, who rushed along with furious speed, swinging
+their coiled lassos as they went, now striving to turn the drove of
+wild cattle, and now retreating before them as they pressed forward
+unchecked by horses or riders; now dashing along side by side with a
+single ox, whose speed nearly equalled the fleetness of the horse; and
+now in the midst of the drove, which seemed scarcely to make room for
+them. However, after much shouting, hallooing, and racing, the cattle
+were turned back, and the exciting scene was over.
+
+But again another shout, and a team of oxen was seen running away with
+a wagon in which was seated the teamster. After running a considerable
+distance, the teamster, watching a favorable opportunity, leaped
+nimbly from his wagon, and headed his oxen, who, stopping suddenly,
+broke the rigging attached to the yoke, and letting the tongue of the
+wagon fall to the ground, brought oxen and wagon together in a heap.
+
+All this for one hour's sport in one locality in Sacramento. What sort
+of amusements they were enjoying at the same time in other parts of the
+city I did not learn.
+
+
+
+
+Cattle Stealing in Contra Costa.
+
+
+_August 17, 1854._ My neighbor, Mr. R., has lost an ox. It was stolen;
+and a horse stolen also. Another neighbor, Mr. A., has lost three
+valuable oxen in the same way.
+
+The great facilities for concealing oxen, horses, and other property in
+the innumerable deeply secluded valleys and hiding-places that occur
+in every direction in the mountainous country, which, commencing at
+these Redwoods, extend to the valley of the San Joaquin, offer too many
+inducements to the numerous idlers and vagabonds that prowl about the
+land to be visited; and consequently theft, robbery, and I may almost
+add, murder, are but every day occurrences. No man who owns a horse, an
+ox or swine, can feel secure of them for a moment when out of sight.
+These thieves are often associated in large gangs, and consist of both
+Americans and Mexicans; and so great is the number of their accomplices
+in some of the villages, that when one of their number is detected,
+means are immediately furnished him to escape. The very officer who is
+commissioned to secure him, is not unfrequently a party concerned in
+the thefts. Many of the butchers are supposed to be leagued with the
+thieves, and, by purchasing their stolen property at low prices, they
+thus share the profits with them.
+
+_August 23._ Justice has at last overtaken two of the cattle thieves.
+Suspicion had for some time past rested on some butchers at San
+Antonio, and they were watched, and detected in the act of slaughtering
+in the night some cows and oxen that had just been stolen. Messengers
+were immediately sent many miles around the country to notify the
+inhabitants to assemble for the trial of the felons. The people of
+the Redwoods, who had suffered severely from the depredations of the
+thieves, turned out almost _en masse_. The house of the butchers was
+the place appointed for the trial. Passing by that place at the time,
+I had the curiosity to stop for a moment, and was surprised to observe
+a strange hesitation and faltering among the people assembled. A long
+discussion ensued as to the proper mode of conducting the trial, which
+ended in turning the thieves over to the legal authorities. This, under
+the existing state of things, was nearly equivalent to giving them
+their liberty; and it was resolved by a number of determined fellows,
+that they should not so easily escape. They were taken before a justice
+for examination, and their guilt fully proved. But they asked for an
+adjournment of the trial till the next day, for the alleged purpose
+of getting some witnesses, but in fact, to give their friends and
+associates an opportunity to rescue them. The adjournment was granted,
+and they were taken to a hotel and put under a guard, of which Andrews,
+from whom they had stolen the oxen, was the head. In the course of the
+day, a party proceeded to the house and corral of the thieves, and
+burned them to the ground with all their contents. Not an article was
+appropriated to their own use by these avengers of their own wrongs. It
+was justice, not plunder, they sought. Valuable saddles, harnesses and
+furniture, were all sacrificed.
+
+There was a gathering of the friends of the thieves in the night, but
+they were driven off by the boys from the Redwoods, who had stationed
+themselves around the house. These men now began to see that they
+must act, and act promptly too, or the whole business would prove
+but a farce, and the guilty villains would escape. They therefore
+dispatched horsemen to the Redwoods to summon the people again to come
+and assist in the execution of the two principal criminals. Before
+morning, a sufficient number had arrived to carry out their plans, and
+they proceeded to action. A number of them went to the house where
+the prisoners were confined, and in defiance of the proprietor, who
+was supposed to be confederate with the thieves, they rushed to the
+room, and seized one of them, whom they hurried away. It was a scene
+of great confusion and terror. The guard made a show of resistance,
+but it was only a show. They fired several shots, but were careful to
+elevate their revolvers above the heads of their assailants; the balls
+lodged in the ceiling, and nobody was killed or wounded. The affair had
+doubtless been preconcerted between Andrews and the assailing party.
+They hastened the guilty thief to an oak a few rods distant, having
+at the outset fastened a rope to his neck; and scarcely a moment had
+elapsed ere he was dangling from a branch. They then returned to the
+house, and seizing another of the thieves, hurried him away as before.
+The fellow was in an agony of fear and horror, begged most piteously
+for his life, protested his innocence, and offered to make important
+disclosures if they would spare him. All this would not have saved
+him had it not been discovered by one of the party when they arrived
+at the tree, that this was not the man they intended to execute. He
+was therefore led back more dead than alive, having endured far more
+suffering and horror than his more hardened confederate, whom he
+saw hanging from the tree, and who had paid the penalty which he so
+narrowly escaped. The intended victim was then taken to the place of
+execution, and immediately suspended beside his dead comrade.
+
+While these executions were taking place, many friends of the thieves
+gathered round, uttering threats and denunciations, but a dozen rifles
+and revolvers were leveled at them, and they were intimidated into
+silence.
+
+These executions caused great excitement at the time, and much
+discussion ensued in the papers respecting them. But the community
+very generally acquiesced in the necessity of the measure, though
+every one regretted it. Complaint was made to the grand jury of the
+county against several of the leaders of the lynching party, but no
+bill of indictment was found against them for want of evidence. Many of
+the people of Oakland were highly exasperated at the audacity of the
+Redwoods boys, and threatened to go and hang them to their own trees.
+But this served rather to amuse the boys than to frighten them.
+
+A few weeks after these executions, word was brought to the Redwoods
+that a poor man had been robbed of some oxen in Oakland through the
+villainy of one of the officials in that city. A company quickly
+assembled and marched down to the city, determined to have justice
+done the poor man, and hang the officer if circumstances required it.
+They had not forgotten the threats of the Oaklanders to hang them, and
+determined to put their courage to the test. The case was investigated
+by the mayor of the city, and the mob resolved to await his decision.
+But much time was occupied in the investigation, and they grew
+impatient and clamorous. Meanwhile many of them paraded through the
+streets, uttering defiance to the citizens. "Here is a target," said a
+brawny, black-bearded Kentuckian, (the same I had encountered in the
+Redwoods, and who sold me a vulture,) as he strode along with a rusty
+rifle on his shoulder, and struck his breast. "Here is a target for
+the Oakland sharp-shooters. Let 'em try it if they dare." "I'm from
+the Redwoods," roared out another. "Where is your Oakland company to
+hang me?" "What are you after?" asked a spectator of one of the boys.
+"Justice," he replied. "But how are you going to obtain it?" "By the
+halter, if the money isn't paid pretty soon," he replied with an oath.
+
+The affair was approaching a crisis. The mayor's investigation had
+been protracted, and the clamors and shouts of the mob often reached
+his ears, when at last he found it necessary to acknowledge that the
+proceedings of the officer were illegal, that the city was liable for
+the value of the cattle, and in order to appease the mob, he pledged
+his individual word for the payment of the money. The party then
+returned triumphantly to their homes in the Redwoods, and thus the
+affair ended.
+
+
+
+
+Felling Trees in the Redwoods.
+
+
+_January 30, 1854._ On an excursion to-day I stopped on the way to
+see two trees felled. When the reader is told that I had passed more
+than six months in the Redwoods, and had seen the trees fall around me
+almost every day, he will suppose that such scenes would lose their
+novelty for me. It is, however, a scene of no ordinary sublimity to
+behold one of those monster trees, nearly as high as the Bunker Hill
+Monument, fall to the ground, and it is a sight which I never tire of
+seeing.
+
+I speak of them as being _nearly_ as high as the Bunker Hill Monument,
+because I have seen none of the largest and tallest trees, they having
+been felled before I arrived here. But a comparison with the monument
+will serve to give a better idea of their great height than a statement
+in figures. Imagine then one of them, such as have grown here, and such
+as are still standing in other forests,--imagine one placed beside the
+monument, and towering fifty or even seventy-five feet above it, and
+you will have a conception of the grandeur of these magnificent forests.
+
+The two trees whose fall I was about to witness stood side by side
+half way up a steep acclivity. One of them had been cut off, and stood
+leaning against the other.
+
+Two men were at work on the latter tree. I seated myself on a stump at
+the foot of the hill, and awaited the result. Presently a sharp snap
+or crackle announced that the tree was about yielding to the efforts
+of the axe-men, and they stopped and looked up. It stood, however, and
+they continued to ply their axes. Soon there came another loud crackle,
+and the two trees began to sway in the direction the axe-men had
+intended. They now retreated to a secure place, while the trees, moving
+slowly and majestically at first, but with an accelerated motion, came
+sweeping down, accompanied with a loud and protracted crash as the
+fibres of the uncut portion were torn asunder, and striking the ground
+with a force that made it tremble, and with a noise like the booming
+report of a heavy cannon. Each tree was broken into several pieces,
+which came rolling like mighty giants down the hill, tumbling over each
+other, and strewing the ground with large fragments torn from their
+sides and ends, while every branch was stripped from the trunks. They
+landed at last at the foot of the hill, and within a rod of the stump
+on which I sat, and sent forward a thick and suffocating cloud of dust,
+from which I hastened to make my escape.
+
+"Ah! we would go a great many miles in Massachusetts to see such a
+sight as this;" said one of the axe-men, a young man from that state,
+"But we can never see any thing like it there."
+
+
+
+
+Solitude.
+
+
+_December, 1853._ An important change has been in progress for some
+time past in the Redwoods. Three or four months ago I was surrounded by
+a deep, dense forest, in which was a busy population at work. But this
+industry fast swept away the forest, and as the timber grew scarce,
+they began to remove to other places. They continued to go until our
+society was reduced to ten men, living in a little cluster of four
+cabins. But even this colony has taken a sudden resolution to migrate,
+and this morning the last man went, and I am left alone. So now,
+nothing remains for me but to go too, which I shall do as soon as I can
+determine where.
+
+As for a portion of my departed neighbors--brutal, lawless
+scoundrels--I am heartily glad they are gone. But I had one good
+friend, whose absence I deeply regret. From the first moment I came
+into the woods until we shook hands and parted this morning, Mr.
+Wakefield has stood by me, a kind, benevolent, warm-hearted, steadfast
+friend. His disinterested kindness, his anxiety for my welfare, and my
+success in business, his watchfulness of two or three bitter foes,
+with whom I have had to contend, and his timely warnings of dangers,
+have entitled him to my warmest gratitude.
+
+Well, here I am in the depths of a California forest, shut up in a
+lonely cabin on a winter night, scribbling my diary for the amusement
+of my daughter, rejoicing in the departure of my foes, and deploring
+the absence of my friends. And while I ponder on the perfect solitude
+that surrounds me, I find myself almost unconsciously repeating from
+Kirk White:
+
+    "It is not that my lot is low,
+    That bids this silent tear to flow;
+    It is not grief that makes me moan;
+    It is that I am all alone."
+
+I had a cat. She has been with me all day; but now, when the society
+of any domestic animal would be some relief against the tedium of this
+deep loneliness, even she has left me and instead of the purring of
+a gentle house cat, I am for a moment startled by the dismal howling
+of a wild animal outside of my cabin. I am unfortunately possessed of
+an unsocial disposition; I love solitude, but I have at last found a
+solitude more profound than I have a taste for.
+
+
+
+
+A Collector of Natural Curiosities.
+
+
+_July 30, 1854._ In company with a young man in San Francisco, who
+had been informed of my taste for the odd and curious productions of
+nature, I visited a man who had made a considerable collection of
+objects of Natural History. We found him in a small room in a second
+story, with his boxes and trunks all packed preparatory to a removal.
+But on announcing the object of our visit, he seemed much pleased, and
+though I remonstrated with him against the trouble it would cost him,
+he proceeded at once to unpack his treasures and spread them before us.
+But before I speak of them let me describe the man. He was a Norwegian,
+but having resided several years in the United States, he spoke pretty
+good English. He was about forty years of age, sprightly and active,
+with a sparkling eye, and a face covered with a very thick red beard
+that hung down upon his breast. He was naturally intelligent, though
+his faculties wanted cultivation. He had never studied Natural History,
+and did not know a single specimen in his collection by its scientific
+name. He had passed much time at sea, I do not know in what capacity,
+but it had afforded him time and opportunity to make a valuable
+collection.
+
+The first curiosity he exhibited was a family of young mice which he
+had bottled the day before. Next he produced a bottle containing a
+little shapeless mass apparently folded up in a bleached tobacco-leaf,
+and challenged me to tell him the name of it. "A young bat," said I.
+"Ha!" he exclaimed, "you are the first man that has guessed it." Then
+he set out bottle after bottle of snakes, some of them very rare and
+beautiful. These reptiles had the greatest attractions for him, and
+they composed the largest and most valuable portion of his collection.
+Then a fine variety of lizards, and a considerable collection of
+coleopterous insects, among which were some very large and brilliant
+specimens. Next he produced a Bible, whose pages he had embellished
+with a variety of butterflies; and lastly, several boxes filled with
+sea-shells and corals, pieces of crystalized quartz, some specimens of
+gold in quartz, a copper ball nearly an inch in diameter, which he had
+found in the mountains, and many other specimens in mineralogy, which
+he had collected in the mines. He gave me several shells and crystals,
+and in return I promised him some bones and feathers of the California
+Vulture and other birds from my cabinet.
+
+He had one live snake which he intended to bottle after it had shed
+its skin, which it was about to do. This snake was kept in a wooden
+box; and, while we were engaged in examining his preserved congeners,
+finding the door of his prison open, he resolved to take an airing
+on the balcony. Here he was accidentally discovered by the next door
+neighbors, who gave our friend timely notice. He immediately gave
+chase, and found his snakeship ensconced among some boxes and other
+rubbish. Seizing him by the tail, he brought him in writhing and
+twisting about his hand and arm, darting out his red forked tongue,
+flashing fire from his eyes, and betraying a total absence of those
+blandishments with which an ancestor of his once induced a pretty woman
+to sin. Some one present asked the man if he was not afraid the snake
+would bite him. "No," he answered, "no snake can bite me." I did not
+ask him if he was a serpent-charmer, but have been told that he was.
+
+The only ornithological specimens he possessed were the skeleton
+head and a wing bone of an albatross. He had not learned the art of
+preserving the skins of birds, and I promised to give him a little
+instruction if I had time and opportunity. I told him how I had been
+thwarted in my intention to make a collection in my voyage round Cape
+Horn by the captain of the ship, and he seemed to struggle for words to
+express his scorn and contempt for such an ignorant and superstitious
+ship-master.
+
+His principal collection was in Philadelphia. He had been offered a
+high price for it, but no amount of money would induce him to sell it.
+
+After a visit of more than two hours, which I engaged to repeat soon,
+we shook hands and parted. I have seldom seen a man display so much
+enthusiasm in an occupation which he followed solely for his amusement.
+
+I took occasion some weeks after this, while making another visit at
+San Francisco, to renew my acquaintance with my Norwegian friend. He
+had recently received a very fine snake, with which he was highly
+pleased. I admired his enthusiasm. "O," said he in the course of our
+conversation, "there is nothing in nature so beautiful as a snake."
+I remarked that this new specimen was certainly a very handsome one.
+"O it is splendid, it is most magnificent." We passed an hour very
+pleasantly together, and parted with much reluctance. I have never seen
+him since.
+
+
+
+
+A Pair of Rattlesnakes.
+
+
+_September 12, 1854._ My account of the Norwegian snake-collector,
+naturally recalls a little experience of my own in the same line. A
+fellow in the Redwoods, near which I was then tarrying, brought me at
+different times, two splendid rattlesnakes, which I bought and placed
+in a long box with a glass front, through which I could observe all
+their motions. It may, perhaps, excite a smile, when I state that by
+constant familiarity with these reptiles, I had acquired a sort of
+affection for them, that would have prompted me to defend them from
+harm, though I never saw one of the species at large, but I made no war
+upon him, except in one instance in which the snake began the battle,
+and I fought in self-defense, and happily won the victory. An Indian
+enriches himself with the scalp of his defeated enemy, and I know not
+but I might have followed his example in this instance had it been
+possible, but in the absence of a scalp-lock I was obliged to content
+myself with such a trophy, as his other extremity afforded, his rattle.
+
+These two reptiles became my pets, and afforded me much amusement. I
+do not think that I was "charmed" by that wonderful power which is
+often attributed to the serpent family. There was no "fascination
+in their eyes," though we often sat and gazed at each other during
+several minutes. But I liked to watch their motions, and study their
+habits; to see them thrust out their long, dark, forked tongues as I
+approached their prison, or erect their tails and shake their rattles
+when disturbed. I liked to behold their spotted bodies, flattened as
+they lay quietly stretched on the floor of their cage, but swollen and
+distended when aroused by a sense of danger; or to see their fangs as
+they sometimes opened their mouths, as if in the act of gaping. I was
+amused with a habit they had of slowly stretching themselves at full
+length along the box, and then suddenly drawing themselves back again.
+And most of all, I was amused to see them on a cold morning folded
+together into a coil, from the center of which their flattened heads
+protruded, and rested side by side upon their bodies, looking, despite
+their venomous natures, the very picture of affection and of innocence,
+and affording a lesson, which many a rational biped might study with
+profit.
+
+These reptiles never quarreled. Place two foxes in a cage, and they
+will fight from day to day, until one or the other is killed. Even two
+birds of many species will destroy each other, when confined together.
+But here was an instance of perfect harmony. In truth they had nothing
+to quarrel about. They seemed to have no wants except that of liberty,
+the love of which they probably possessed in common with every other
+animal. They could fast without hunger or thirst. I placed fresh meat
+and water in their cage, but they never tasted of either. I threw
+several lizards in to them, but they allowed them to run over the
+cage, and even over their bodies unmolested. Still they do eat, though
+individuals have been known to live many months and even years without
+tasting food. White in his Natural History of Selbourne, says: "The
+serpent-kind eat, I believe, but once a year, or, rather, but only just
+at one season of the year."
+
+But my pets were doomed to a tragical end, which it pains me record.
+Two old men, who had no fondness for beautiful things in animated
+nature, nor a taste for any thing else but whiskey and tobacco, got
+charmingly drunk one day, and being bent on mischief, they broke into
+my room during my absence, and seized my snakes, took them into the
+street where they had kindled a fire for the occasion, and with much
+ceremony and mock solemnity, offered them up to their god, whoever he
+might be, as a burnt sacrifice. The loss of those snakes was a source
+of great annoyance and vexation to me, and I earnestly and devoutly
+prayed that in every fit of delirium-tremens which those old sinners
+should bring upon themselves during the remainder of their worthless
+lives, they might be haunted by the ghosts of those murdered innocents.
+
+
+
+
+A Queer Fellow.
+
+
+_April 18, 1860._ Mr. Van Wee was one of the queerest compounds of
+oddity, with whom it was my fortune to meet in my travels. He kept a
+hotel at Oak Bottom, ten miles from Shasta. Two Irish women, sisters,
+were his housekeepers and servants. Many a lively scene was enacted
+about his establishment, and scarcely a day passed without bringing
+some extraordinary excitement. One day there was a great uproar in and
+around the house occasioned by the arrival of a skunk on a visit to the
+chickens. The dogs barked, the hens cackled, the women screamed, and
+Van Wee flew round wild with excitement, his gun was brought to him,
+the intruder chased into the stable and shot, and quiet was restored.
+
+Next day two valuable dogs, very useful for barking at travelers and
+eating superfluous food, which would otherwise be thrown to the pigs
+and lost, strayed away or were stolen. A boy and an Irish woman were
+sent off on horseback after them, and great was the rejoicing in the
+afternoon on the safe return of dogs, horses, boy and woman.
+
+On the morning of the third day I was surprised to learn that there
+had been a wedding in the house, and that Mr. Van Wee, in obedience to
+a sudden impulse had married one of his housekeepers. The wedding had
+been very private, so much so, that the sister of the bride was not
+aware that such an event was in contemplation until the hour before its
+consummation.
+
+This Van Wee, as I have said before, is a queer fellow. He hates the
+liquor business, but keeps a bar, drinks with all his friends--and
+they are numerous--and gets mellow every day. He is, or rather was,
+a Know-Nothing in politics, and hates all foreigners of whatever
+nation, although his father and mother are Dutch, and his wife is
+Irish. An infidel in religion, he read me a chapter from Tom Paine's
+Age of Reason. He contributes freely to churches, and is hospitable to
+clergymen of whatever creed. He receives a great many rudely expressed,
+but hearty congratulations from his friends, whom he treats, drinks
+with, swears at, blackguards, and invites to see "the gal," who
+receives her friends in the kitchen, while attending to her duties over
+the stove, with her gown pinned up in true Irish style. His affection
+for his wife continues unabated, notwithstanding he has been married
+three days,--this was when I last saw him,--and he betrays it in many
+acts of coarse kindness; calls her Biddy, ridicules her nation and her
+religion, damns her priests and feeds them all.
+
+He has sent invitations to all his friends, far and near, men,
+women and children, to assemble at his house, next week for a grand
+jollification in commemoration of his wedding. Long may he flourish.
+
+
+
+
+A Sandwich Island Woman
+
+AND HER YANKEE HUSBAND.
+
+
+_Red Woods, Contra Costra, Dec. 16, 1854._ I have made acquaintance
+with a Kanaka woman, the only one I have ever seen. She is known by the
+name of Hannah, is eighteen years of age, was married five years ago to
+a Yankee sailor, and left her native island for a home in California.
+She is short and thick, with a complexion darker than that of our
+Indians, has a broad nose and wide mouth, her countenance partaking of
+a mixture of the Indian and the Negro. She is kind and affectionate,
+lively and excitable, quick and passionate, simple and guileless. Her
+mind is uncultivated, and she is grossly vulgar and profane in her
+language, and disgustingly filthy in her person and dress. She is very
+temperate, drinking no strong liquors, but smokes cigars. She is
+honest and trusty, faithful to discharge all debts she may contract,
+and to fulfil all her engagements. She is a simple-minded child of
+nature, and I am often amused with her child-like talk.
+
+This morning she was very inquisitive, and made many inquiries about
+my home and family. I showed her a daguerreotype of my daughter. She
+examined it with much curiosity and in silence for several minutes,
+when she broke out in a shower of questions, ejaculations and remarks,
+which could not but amuse me.
+
+"Dat you little gal? Don to see dranfader? Petty woman, brack hair. Dot
+a rin on her han. (Ring on her finger.) What you gal name? How old you
+gal? Very petty. You gal, he no come to Californy? You no want to see
+you gal? Petty dress." And then she asked me about my father, mother,
+sister, brothers, and every thing relating to them, until she got a
+pretty full account of my family.
+
+Hannah is a good rider, and often figures on horseback in a very long
+blue calico riding-dress, a man's straw hat with a narrow brim, and
+tied with a string under the chin, and a woolen jacket belonging to
+her husband. Our circus riders might learn some useful lessons from
+Hannah's equestrian feats.
+
+Mr. Joseph Tracy, or as he is more familiarly called, Kanaka Joe, is
+a sailor from Maine, has seen much of the world, was on board the
+Princeton steamship at the time of the explosion of the great gun, by
+which several gentlemen of John Tyler's cabinet were killed, and has
+spent considerable time in the Sandwich Islands, whither he intends to
+return after he shall have made his fortune in California. Joe is a
+still, quiet, peaceable fellow, though quick to resent an insult, and
+can fight beautifully when necessary. He has a sailor's high notions
+of honor and a sailor's deep passion for drink. He is fond of reading
+withal, has quite a taste for the yellow-covered literature, talks
+learnedly of books, and often philosophizes very wisely, and has no
+mean opinion of his own literary taste and scientific attainments.
+Joe is very fond of his Kanaka wife, though he flogs her occasionally
+in the heat of passion, repenting of it immediately after. As Joe's
+improvident habits are not conducive to a rapid accumulation of riches,
+the time of his return to his island-home may be considered somewhat
+uncertain.
+
+
+
+
+A Party.
+
+
+_January, 1855._ Señor Moraga was one of those land owners, whose
+domains, over which immense droves of wild cattle roamed, extended
+over many a league of rich land, until the advent of the Americans,
+who lawlessly despoiled them of large numbers of their cattle, and
+who introduced many expensive habits among them, which they were but
+too ready to adopt; when necessity compelled them to part with large
+tracts of their lands to the greedy foreigners, and their estates
+dwindled down to insignificant ranches. Señor Moraga, though shorn of
+many thousand acres, had still a large and exceedingly valuable estate
+remaining.
+
+I received an invitation to attend a party at his house on New Year's
+eve, 1855. I set out on foot in the evening, which was lighted up by
+a moon approaching the full, that often breaking forth from masses of
+dark clouds, which had been pouring down a plentiful supply of rain
+during the day, enabled me to follow a trail that led up the valley
+and over the mountain ridge, on the opposite side of which stood
+Moraga's residence. It was a fine evening, and I--I scarcely knew
+why--was in a mood to enjoy it. It may have been the breaking up of the
+storm and the appearance of the clouds and the sky, which resembled
+more nearly the moonlight views we have in New England than any thing
+I had beheld for many a long month; or it may have been the pleasing
+anticipation of the novelties I was about to witness and enjoy during
+the evening, though what they were I had not been informed and could
+hardly imagine. But whatever may have been the cause, my spirits were
+buoyant, and my thoughts busy and pleasant.
+
+I arrived at Moraga's at an early hour. His house overlooked a
+beautiful valley, and commanded a fine view of the hills beyond. It
+was built of adobes, and the walls were several feet thick. A broad
+piazza extended along the front, affording a pleasant shade in summer.
+I entered by a broad door-way, a capacious room well finished, and
+handsomely papered and painted. There was neither stove nor fire-place
+in it, nor any furniture, with the exception of chairs and a small
+time-piece. In this room the gentlemen were assembled, and this was
+the hall in which we were to pass the evening. In a smaller room on
+the left, I saw two neat-looking beds, one of which was furnished
+with handsome figured, white muslin curtains. There were also chairs,
+tables, and a looking-glass in the room. This room I observed was
+occupied by the family, and the lady guests. The only other room I saw
+was that in which we took supper, and was like the rest, finished in a
+style of considerable neatness.
+
+And now for the company. First comes Señor Moraga, the father of our
+host and owner of the estate, an old man of seventy, short, thick,
+corpulent and coarse-featured, but sprightly, active and polite.
+Then his sons, José and Francisco, between thirty and forty years
+of age, swarthy men with very good features, black hair, whiskers
+and mustaches. They were very gentlemanly in their deportment. There
+were several Mexicans, some of whom were tolerably polished in
+their manners, and others as uncouth as the Indians with whom they
+associated. But the greater part of the company consisted of Americans,
+rough men from the Redwoods, who, however, deported themselves with a
+considerable degree of propriety.
+
+Next come the ladies, who, by all the laws of gallantry, should have
+been mentioned first. And foremost among them was Doña Maria, our
+hostess, and the lady of José Moraga. She was a large, corpulent woman
+with a fairer complexion and better features than most Mexican women I
+had seen, and she was said to be of pure Castilian blood. Her black,
+glossy hair was arranged in the usual Spanish style, in two braids
+that hung down her back. She was dressed in a black silk that fitted
+well her capacious person. She had several daughters, whose personal
+attractions I cannot extol, but who were very pretty dancers. There
+were two old women, very ugly, whose names I did not learn. I observed
+a considerable number of Indian women in the house, and there was no
+lack of pappooses among them. I was pleased with the little imps, and
+they did not reject my overtures for a frolic occasionally, and were
+not disinclined to be on familiar terms with me. They constituted,
+indeed, a very amusing part of the evening's entertainment.
+
+Two musicians had been employed for the occasion. Their instruments
+were a violin and a guitar. Dancing was the principal amusement.
+
+The ladies entered the room and seated themselves without ceremony, the
+musicians struck up a lively tune, and one of the gentlemen arose and
+waved his handkerchief towards a lady, whereupon she arose and moved
+moderately over the floor, and while her feet, hid by her long dress,
+drummed out almost every note of the music, her body seemed to glide
+along without any apparent exertion, neither rising nor falling, as if
+she were carried along by invisible machinery, or was floating over
+the floor without touching it. While she was thus moving along in this
+peculiar dance, one of the gentlemen seized his neighbor's hat--all the
+gentlemen wore their hats except when dancing--and placed it on the
+young lady's head. She still continued to dance without appearing to
+pay the slightest attention to this apparently uncivil act. She soon,
+however, took her seat and displaced the hat, holding it in her hand.
+Another and another of the ladies were called, or rather motioned up,
+who each performed the same dance, and each was similarly crowned with
+a hat or a handkerchief, and sometimes with several of each. Doña Maria
+was also called to the floor. She executed the dance with superior
+grace, and with greater success than the girls in collecting hats and
+handkerchiefs. All this was carried on with great merriment on the
+part of the young fellows, but with the greatest apparent gravity and
+seriousness on that of the ladies. I was at a loss to know the meaning
+of this strange performance, or if it had any meaning at all, until my
+own _sombrero_ was suddenly snatched from my head, and placed on that
+of a young señorita. I was then informed that each article thus seized
+and appropriated must be redeemed by a payment in money to the fair
+one on whom it had been bestowed, and that half a dollar was the sum
+agreed on by general assent. In this way, considerable sums of money
+are sometimes gathered by the ladies from a company of liberal young
+men, who enjoy the sport of thus victimizing each other. This amusement
+was called up repeatedly in the course of the evening, and some of the
+young men paid a pretty handsome tax for the sport. I saw Doña Maria
+at one time with three hats crowded on her head, and at least half a
+dozen handkerchiefs on her shoulders. Besides the tax thus collected,
+an assessment of two dollars each was levied on us to pay for the music.
+
+Besides the singular dance I have just described we had cotillions
+and waltzes. In the first, the fat Doña Maria was the most graceful
+dancer, but in the waltzes--Doña Maria did not waltz--several of the
+girls performed very prettily. But foremost among them was Francisco's
+daughter, Juana, and another young lady whose name I did not learn, who
+waltzed with much ease and grace, and who prided themselves on tiring
+out, not only the other dancers, but even the musicians. My head grew
+giddy as I sat and saw those two girls twirling about the room.
+
+Supper was ready at an early hour. My friend, Francisco, did me the
+unexpected honor to lead me in and seat me at the head of the first
+table. Doña Maria sat at the opposite extremity of the table, and the
+other ladies, numbering from sixteen to twenty, occupied the sides.
+Myself was the only male. Our supper consisted of soup, baked meats,
+boiled chickens and bread, with wine in glass tumblers instead of tea
+or coffee. We were waited upon by our host, José, assisted by another
+gentleman. There was but little conversation among us, but we got along
+very pleasantly. I proposed a glass of wine with Doña Maria by signs,
+which she readily understood, and she drank her glass with much grace.
+Perceiving José to be rather inexpert at carving chickens, I offered
+my services, which he accepted. We afterwards drank a glass of wine
+together, and thus ended the ceremony of supper. The table was soon
+cleared and rearranged for another set of occupants.
+
+Dancing was kept up pretty constantly, I did not join in it, but was
+for the most part a silent spectator. I found myself frequently, in
+the course of the evening, seated by the side of our hostess, who was
+disposed to make herself agreeable, and would, I doubt not, really
+have been so, had she understood my language, or I hers. As it was, I
+contrived to ask her a few questions, and found her quick to comprehend
+my signs. I inquired about her children, knowing that to be the
+subject, of all others, the most interesting to a mother. She pointed
+to those who were dancing, and to several that were seated. I asked her
+how many she had, and she held up her five fingers of one hand, and
+three of the other. "_Ocho_," said I. "_Si, Señor, ocho_," she replied
+with a smile, amused, perhaps, that I had learned one word of Spanish.
+
+Francisco, also, with not a little pride, directed my attention to his
+daughters, who were dancing so merrily; and I could only express my
+admiration of them by exclaiming, "_bueno; bueno_!"
+
+Thus pleasantly passed the evening until eleven o'clock, when giving
+my friendly entertainers a cordial shake of the hands, I bade them _á
+Dios_, and wended my way back again over the mountains to my lodgings.
+The company continued dancing till morning.
+
+I have been thus particular in giving the details of this party,
+believing that whatever is peculiar in the manners and customs of any
+people may be interesting, and perhaps, not wholly useless to know. And
+having been myself much interested in the amusements of the evening, I
+cannot but hope that the reader will find something to please him in
+this account of them.
+
+
+
+
+Indians and Their Costumes.
+
+
+_September 23, 1856._ There was a company of Indians encamped in the
+vicinity of Oroville, for the purpose of gathering their harvest of
+acorns, which grew in great abundance there. They passed my temporary
+home every morning, men, boys, and women, furnished with sacks made of
+netting, earned by the men, and conical baskets for the women, and with
+a pole eight or ten feet long, with which to beat off the acorns. The
+pole had a short stick fastened to the butt end with strings, by means
+of which they suspended it to the limb of a tree when they ascended the
+trunk. The acorn is one of their most valuable articles of food, and
+they gather large quantities of them.
+
+These Indians were more scantily clad than any I had ever seen, many of
+them having only a shirt, sometimes but a very ragged one; and in one
+instance I saw a tall brawny Indian, who was entirely destitute of even
+this scanty covering.
+
+One day a woman with pretty good features, the wife of the chief,
+came to our house in company with other Indians. A large portion of
+her face was besmeared with pitch, and the locks over her forehead
+were matted with the same substance. I enquired the reason of this
+disfigurement, and was told that it was the Indian's badge of mourning,
+and that she had probably lost a relative. A few days after this call,
+she came again accompanied by her husband, the chief, who was superior
+in intelligence, as well as in rank, to his companions. He spoke a
+little English. The squaw had renewed the coat of pitch, and looked
+more hideously than before. I could see, however, in spite of the
+pitch, that she was a pretty woman, and in spite of the scantiness
+of her covering, that she was modest. Some remarks were made by
+one of the company present, in allusion to her besmeared face. Her
+husband understood them, and explained the custom in a word or two.
+"Indian's way," said he. "Lost little boy," pointing to his wife. We
+all understood him, and the eyes of the poor squaw moistened as she
+comprehended the subject of our conversation. The Indians are not
+destitute of natural affection.
+
+Few hearts can witness unmoved the tears of a woman, though she be a
+wild and filthy Indian; and the feelings of this poor untutored savage
+were respected by our company, who refrained from any further allusion
+to the subject that brought painful recollections to her mind.
+
+_March 3, 1857._ During a long walk to-day, I stopped to sketch some
+singular hills, consisting of two, and sometimes of three, plateaus or
+terraces, each terrace being supported by a layer of rock, resting on a
+stratum of clay, or soft sandstone, which, in many places was worn out
+a foot or two beneath the rock, and making a distinct dark line in the
+landscape.
+
+Before sketching one of these hills, I ascended it and clambered up
+the rock, which varied from six to eight feet in height. Here, among
+some bushes, I saw a smoke arising, and on one of the shrubs hung an
+Indian's cap and his lance. I approached the spot, and suddenly found
+myself in the presence of a large, fat squaw, who lay basking in the
+sunshine, clad in the habiliments which nature had given her, with the
+addition of a very slight substitute, for that leafy garment which was
+once the fashion at a very remote period in the world's history. Two
+little dusky cherubs sat near her, and the partner of her joys and
+sorrows lay on the ground at a little distance, enjoying a comfortable
+_siesta_. It was a charming picture of contented indolence, and I
+have seen more than one lazy white man, who would have coveted their
+enjoyment.
+
+I attempted to enter into conversation with the lady, and asked her if
+she had some baskets to sell. She made no reply, but, with becoming
+modesty, though with no affectation of haste, took up her blanket
+that lay near her, and half veiled her charms from my admiring gaze.
+Finding her disinclined to talk, I left her, descended the hill, made
+my sketch, and continued my walk.
+
+_March 6, 1875._ With an Indian for a guide, I visited a fine
+water-fall in a solitary place among the mountains. On our return, my
+guide conducted me to a rancherie, consisting of half a dozen wigwams.
+As we approached them, the dogs barked, the children screamed, the old
+women drew on their blankets, and the naked girls retreated behind the
+cabins. An old man and an old woman sat quietly on their haunches, and
+a young man lay sick and squalid on the ground beside a bed of embers
+that were kept alive at his head. My guide sat down beside them without
+any ceremony, and they all preserved a profound silence during several
+minutes, as if they were offering up a silent prayer to the Great
+Spirit for the recovery of the invalid. At the end of this ceremony,
+they became talkative, the young man ate the remains of a lunch I had
+brought with me, and the old man begged two bits, (for these Indians,
+like all others, are inveterate beggars) when we proceeded on our
+journey.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Yosemite Falls.
+
+
+_May 29, 1859._ A rude dug-out having been brought up the river,
+I crossed over in it, and walked to the foot of the fall. A dense
+spray prevents a near approach to the fall, which comes down in a
+perpendicular descent, until within a hundred feet of the bottom, when
+it strikes a projecting rock, and dashes off in a shower of spray. I
+speak of the lower fall only, for the cataract is divided into three
+portions, the upper portion coming down perpendicularly; the middle
+portion being a wild rapid, in a deep, dark, and fearful canyon, in
+which the stream falls four hundred feet, and then drops down six
+hundred feet further to the base of the great wall, making an aggregate
+of more than half a mile.
+
+The view upward from the foot of the fall is particularly impressive.
+The middle fall of four hundred feet, is entirely hid from the sight,
+and such is the immense height of the whole, that the space occupied by
+this middle fall seems dwindled to a few feet, and the spectator can
+scarcely realize that such a fall does, indeed, exist. But the view
+of the fall from this near approach is more than impressive, it is
+sublime; and the spectator finds himself overwhelmed with a feeling of
+intense awe, as he looks upward and beholds the foaming, roaring water
+pouring down, as it were, from the very depths of heaven,
+
+    "So wild and furious in its sparkling fall,
+    Dashing its torrents down, and dazzling all;
+    Sublimely breaking from its glorious height,
+    Majestic, thundering, beautiful and bright."
+
+I have alluded to the influence of the wind upon the upper portion of
+the fall. It often reminds me of the writhings of an immense serpent,
+when two or three opposing currents of air are blowing it from side to
+side. Sometimes a blast of wind sways it wholly out of its accustomed
+course, with the exception of a few hundred feet of its uppermost
+portion, and lays bare nearly the whole surface of the rock which it
+covers in its undisturbed descent, but hiding for a minute another
+portion. Now large clouds of spray are thrown out from one side, and
+then from the other, still forever falling; now the whole fall is
+spread out to twice, or thrice, its usual width, and the next moment,
+as the wind subsides, it becomes straightened and narrowed to its usual
+proportions. These continued changes add exceedingly to the beauty, and
+even grandeur, of the fall, and one never wearies of beholding it as it
+pours, crashing and roaring, down its enormous wall of rock.
+
+    "Roar, roar, thou waterfall! lift up thy voice
+    Even to the clouded regions of the skies:
+    Thy brightness and thy beauty may rejoice,
+    Thy music charms the ears, thy light the eyes,
+    Joy-giving torrent! sweetest memory
+    Receives a freshness, and a strength from thee."
+
+
+
+
+The Domes.
+
+
+The rounded summits of many of the mountains of the Yosemite Valley,
+which gives them a domelike appearance, constitutes one of its
+peculiarities. The North and South Domes have been often described and
+painted. Situated on opposite sides of the lower Valley at its eastern
+extremity, and forming portions of its two great walls, they are not
+the least of its most prominent objects. Indeed, the South Dome is the
+highest point around the Valley, and rises to an altitude of nearly
+five thousand feet above the plain.
+
+A tremendous disruption of this mountain is apparent on its western
+face, where it has been cleft from its summit, perpendicularly down to
+a depth of two thousand feet, and the western portion thrown off and
+hurled down the mountain, at whose base it lies in fragments, a huge
+heap, a mountain of itself.
+
+What a sublime, a terrifying spectacle would here have presented itself
+to a spectator standing on the North Dome and looking across the
+Valley, to behold a part of the mountain before him two thousand feet
+in depth, starting from its foundation, breaking away from the firmer
+portion, and falling, rolling, grinding, crashing, down the mountain
+side, with the roar and shaking of a terrible earthquake, and dashing
+into millions of fragments, until it reached the plain, three thousand
+feet below its starting point. I can imagine what overwhelming emotions
+would seize him as he beheld the mountain falling, and in dread and
+horror thinking the end of the world was approaching, and that the
+mountain on which he stood might fall next.
+
+This is a region of wonders. They meet us at every step. The Valley
+itself is a vast aggregate of wonders. There was a time when it was
+elevated to a level with the walls that now surround it, when the
+Merced flowed along at a height of two or three thousand feet above its
+present bed, and before the Yosemite and all these falls were created.
+
+It is an interesting question, How came the Valley lowered to its
+present depth? Without a very deep investigation of the subject, I have
+formed an opinion in opposition to that of many persons, who attribute
+it to an earthquake; that at some remote period a deluge occurred here,
+and that the Valley was formed by the torrents that swept through it,
+carrying away the earth, and leaving the bare walls in their present
+wild desolation, with the newly created cataracts pouring down their
+sides.
+
+
+
+
+Farewell to the Yosemite.
+
+
+_June 30, 1859._ Early in the morning and before breakfast, Camerer,--a
+German friend,--and I, were on our way. As we went down the beautiful
+Valley, we often stopped to gaze at the stupendous scenes we were about
+to leave; and never before had they looked so grand, and glorious.
+Lingering, loitering, talking, and discussing the several points of
+interest, time passed rapidly, and the sunbeams soon began to gild the
+summits of the mountains, the lofty rock of Tutocanula catching his
+first rays. A hundred birds strained their little throats and poured
+out their sweetest strains of melody, as if to bid us farewell, and
+cheer us on our way.
+
+As the scenes with which we had been so long familiar, now passed again
+in review before us; the Yosemite, the Sentinel, the Cathedral Rocks,
+Tutocanula, the Bridal Veil; each claimed for the hundredth, and last
+time, our attention and admiration. "O," exclaimed my German friend,
+when the necessity of hastening our journey occurred to us, "O, it is
+very hard to get out of this Valley."
+
+We at length arrived at the end of the plain, and began to ascend the
+mountain. Half way up the height we came to a spot from which we had so
+fine a view, that we resolved to stop and sketch it. This was a general
+view of the Valley, and its surrounding walls, and of course, it was
+my last sketch. Having accomplished this task, we hastened forward,
+scarcely looking around us, until we reached an elevation whence we
+were about to take our last look. But we had loitered too long by the
+way, and had little time to spare. Stopping, therefore, but for a
+minute, and filled with emotions such as Adam and Eve may be supposed
+to have felt when,
+
+    "They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
+    Through Eden took their solitary way,"
+
+we cast one sad look at the scene behind us, and bade a sorrowful and
+final adieu to the wonderful Yosemite Valley.
+
+
+
+
+The California Vulture.
+
+
+_February 9, 1854._ In a walk some days since through the Redwoods,
+I encountered an old man by the side of the road engaged in making
+shingles. He was a very coarse-looking fellow with a dark complexion
+and a black, bushy beard, that more than half covered his face, giving
+an additional grimness to his rough, harsh features. He was an old
+Kentucky rifleman, and, as I learned to-day, a first-rate marksman. He
+had shot a Vulture some time before, and it was lying near his cabin,
+half decayed. Some quills were scattered over the ground, and I picked
+up two or three of them, when he ordered me in the rudest manner to
+leave them. I then offered to buy some of them, but he would neither
+sell nor give them away. He wanted them for himself.
+
+While I stood there another man joined us, and asked the name of
+the bird. "A Turkey Buzzard," said the old man. I disputed him, and
+endeavored to point out the difference between this bird and the Turkey
+Buzzard. But he would not be convinced. He had seen thousands of them
+in Kentucky, though he admitted they were smaller there than here. I
+replied that he might with equal propriety say that a Raven was a large
+Crow, or a Crow a large Blackbird. But he did not admit the analogy of
+the two cases, and the bird _was_ a Turkey Buzzard and nothing more. So
+I left him in the enjoyment of his own opinion.
+
+To-day I passed his cabin again, and he accosted me with considerable
+civility. A sort of grim smile played over his harsh features, his
+manners were wonderfully softened, and the gruff old savage seemed to
+have been suddenly transformed into a half civilized being. He had
+shot two Vultures yesterday, though one of them, which he had only
+wing-tipped, and tied to a stake, had escaped. He was willing to sell
+me the remaining bird, and the payment of five bits made me its owner.
+
+On further conversation with him, I found that he possessed a taste
+for birds and other natural curiosities, and had some preparations for
+preserving specimens. He showed me some birds and a horned toad which
+he had preserved.
+
+I skinned my bird, and left it with the Kentuckian, while I continued
+my walk. But this walk furnished me with nothing further to record
+except a word or two concerning the habits of these same Vultures. I
+saw six or eight of them perched on trees, sitting in perfect idleness
+and scarcely moving. I believe Audubon says that they are very shy
+and difficult to approach. But Audubon had never seen one. A man was
+cutting up a fallen tree near one of the birds, but without disturbing
+him. Another one sat on a branch of a low tree, which I approached.
+When I arrived within less than gunshot distance, he half spread his
+wings and stood up, as if preparing to fly. But after a minute's
+hesitation he folded his pinions again, and seemed to have come to the
+conclusion that there was no danger from a man with only a stick in his
+hand. As I continued to approach the tree on which he stood, he thrust
+his head down below his body, and turned it about most whimsically,
+while he kept his keen eye fastened on me as though he were quizzing
+me; but still he showed no disposition to fly. I now began to shout
+at him, and to swing my cap, and i' faith, it seemed as if my noise
+and gesticulations served rather to amuse than to frighten him. Then
+I threw my cane up in the air towards him, but he only gave his head
+an extra cant, and continued peering at me with such an impudent,
+derisive, no-ye-don't sort of a look, that I almost expected to see him
+raise his thumb to his nose, and shake his fingers at me. Finding him
+thus firmly resolved not to be driven from his position, I left him,
+fully believing that if a man wishes to hunt California Vultures, their
+shyness will be no obstacle to his success.
+
+On returning, I called for the skin of my bird which measured nine feet
+four inches from tip to tip of the wings, and three feet eleven inches
+in length.
+
+
+
+
+My Skill at Rifle Shooting.
+
+
+_March 29, 1854._ I went out to try my skill at rifle shooting. Saw
+a pair of Vultures in a tree on the heights in front of my house.
+I clambered up the hill and approached within a short distance of
+the birds, but the trunk of the tree, on the branches of which they
+stood, hid them from my view, and I made a short circuit, and crept
+behind a tree that brought me still nearer the Vultures. I now had
+one of them in full view, and was in a fair way to have him in my
+possession. I cocked my rifle for the fatal shot, brought it up to my
+face, and closed my left optic, preparatory to the death-dealing aim,
+when the foolish bird, as if he were actuated by a spirit of reckless
+daring, bravado and defiance, sidled out on the branch that held him,
+stood erect with his breast square before me, half expanded his broad
+wings, while he cast a glance of his keen eyes upon me, and seemed
+to say, "Here is your mark; now try your skill." I did so. The report
+of my rifle reverberated over the hills; the ball sped--I knew not
+whither--and the birds left their perch with a precipitancy, and flew
+away with a haste I have seldom witnessed. The smoke of the powder had
+scarcely cleared away ere they were seen performing their gyrations
+over a neighboring mountain. I made my way speedily, down the hill,
+and----sold my rifle.
+
+
+
+
+Incident at a Camp-meeting.
+
+
+I accepted an invitation from a friend to attend a Methodist
+camp-meeting, which was held in a grove about five miles distant
+from the Contra Costa Redwoods. The services did not vary much from
+similar services in New England. But a little incident occurred of
+such a novel character, and so singularly beautiful, that I record
+it for the benefit of Christians in other portions of the country.
+When the collection was about to be taken, the Presiding Elder, the
+Rev. Mr. Fulton, addressed the audience in these words: "At the last
+Presbyterian camp-meeting, the collection taken for the support of
+the ministry was, most unexpectedly to me, divided between all of us
+who had taken part in the services; and I was constrained to share
+it equally with my Presbyterian brethren. Such an act, the first of
+the kind I have ever known, was as gratifying as it was unexpected;
+and most happy am I to say, that we have this day an opportunity to
+reciprocate the favor, by sharing with the brother of that denomination
+now present, the collection to which we invite you to contribute."
+
+The effect of this address upon the audience was manifested by the
+jingling of the coin which was poured into the hats from every quarter
+of the field.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With this little anecdote I take leave of the reader, remarking,
+however, that I passed nine years in California; resided in many of its
+principal cities; roamed over a large part of the northern portion of
+the State; visited most of the mines from Mariposa to Yreka; traveled
+across the State of Oregon and into Washington Territory; sailed up
+the Columbia River to the Cascades; visited a great number of places
+remarkable for their scenery; spent five weeks in the wonderful
+Yosemite Valley; lodged in a hollow of one of the "Big Trees" of
+Mariposa; listened to the mighty roar of the Geysers; walked round the
+beautiful Clear Lake, and paddled my canoe round the far-famed Lake
+Tahoe; clambered up the sides, and stood upon the highest pinnacles of
+Mount Shasta, and many other mountains of the Sierra Nevada range; and
+encountered people of all descriptions, characters, and nationalities.
+Reader, shall I give you a further account of my observations and
+adventures?
+
+
+_THE END._
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Inconsistencies in the author's use of hyphens have been
+left unchanged, as in the original text. Obvious printer errors have been
+corrected without comment. Otherwise, the author's original spelling,
+punctuation, hyphenation and use of accents have been left intact with the
+following exceptions:
+
+Page 44: The word "we" was added in the following phrase: "This
+morning, just as we were about to sail,"
+
+Page 148: Yosemite Fall was changed to Yosemite Falls to match Yosemite
+Falls in the Contents.
+
+Capitalisation and periods have been standardised in the Chapter
+Headings and the Contents so that these do not differ.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Round Cape Horn, by Joseph Lamson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43342 ***