Two Years Before the Mast

you! I’ll work you up! You don’t have enough to do! You’ve mistaken your man. I’m F⁠⸺ T⁠⸺, all the way from ’down east.’ I’ve been through the mill, ground, and bolted, and come out a regular-built down east johnnycake, good when it’s hot, but when it’s cold, sour and indigestible;⁠—and you’ll find me so!” The latter part of the harangue I remember well, for it made a strong impression, and the “down east johnnycake” became a byword for the rest of the voyage. So much for our petition for the redress of grievances. The matter was however set right, for the mate, after allowing the captain due time to cool off, explained it to him, and at night we were all called aft to hear another harangue, in which, of course, the whole blame of the misunderstanding was thrown upon us. We ventured to hint that he would not give us time to explain; but it wouldn’t do. We were driven back discomforted. Thus the affair blew over, but the irritation caused by it remained; and we never had peace or a good understanding again so long as the captain and crew remained together.

We continued sailing along in the beautiful temperate climate of the Pacific. The Pacific well deserves its name, for except in the southern part, at Cape Horn, and in the western parts, near the China and Indian oceans, it has few storms, and is never either extremely hot or cold. Between the tropics there is a slight haziness, like a thin gauze, drawn over the sun, which, without obstructing or obscuring the light, tempers the heat which comes down with perpendicular fierceness in the Atlantic and Indian tropics. We sailed well to the westward to have the full advantage of the northeast trades, and when we had reached the latitude of Point Conception, where it is usual to make the land, we were several hundred miles to the westward of it. We immediately changed our course due east, and sailed in that direction for a number of days. At length we began to heave to after dark, for fear of making the land at night on a coast where there are no lighthouses and but indifferent charts, and at daybreak on the morning of

Tuesday, Jan. 13th, 1835, we made the land at Point Conception, lat. 34° 32′ N., long. 120° 06′ W. The port of Santa Barbara, to which we were bound, lying about sixty miles to the southward of this point, we continued sailing down the coast during the day and following night, and on the next morning,

Jan. 14th, 1835, we came to anchor in the spacious bay of Santa Barbara, after a voyage of one hundred and fifty days from Boston.

IX

California⁠—A southeaster.

California extends along nearly the whole of the western coast of Mexico, between the gulf of California in the south and the bay of Sir Francis Drake99 on the north, or between the 22nd and 38th degrees of north latitude. It is subdivided into two provinces⁠—Lower or Old California, lying between the gulf and the 32nd degree of latitude, or near it; (the division line running, I believe, between the bay of Todos Santos and the port of San Diego); and New or Upper California, the southernmost port of which is San Diego, in lat. 32° 39′, and the northernmost, San Francisco, situated in the large bay discovered by Sir Francis Drake, in lat. 37° 58′, and called after him by the English, though the Mexicans call it Yerba Buena. Upper California has the seat of its government at Monterey, where is also the customhouse, the only one on the coast, and at which every vessel intending to trade on the coast must enter its cargo before it can commence its traffic. We were to trade upon this coast exclusively, and therefore expected to go to Monterey at first; but the captain’s orders from home were to put in at Santa Barbara, which is the central port of the coast, and wait there for the agent who lives there, and transacts all the business for the firm to which our vessel belonged.

The bay, or, as it was commonly called, the canal of Santa Barbara, is very large, being formed by the mainland on one side (between Point Conception on the north and Point St. Buena Ventura on the south), which here bends in like a crescent, and three large islands opposite to it and at the distance of twenty miles. This is just sufficient to give it the name of a bay, while at the same time it is so large and so much exposed to the southeast and northwest winds, that it is little better than an open roadstead; and the whole swell of the Pacific ocean rolls in here before a southeaster, and breaks with so heavy a surf in the shallow waters, that it is highly dangerous to lie near to the shore during the southeaster season; that is, between the months of November and April.

This wind (the southeaster) is the bane of the coast of California. Between the months of November and April (including a part of each), which is the rainy season in this latitude, you are never safe from it, and accordingly, in the ports which are open to it, vessels are obliged, during these months, to lie at anchor at a distance of three miles from the shore, with slip ropes on their cables, ready to slip and go to sea at a moment’s warning. The only ports which are safe from this wind are San Francisco and Monterey in the north, and San Diego in the south.

As it was January when we arrived, and the middle of the southeaster season, we accordingly came to anchor at the distance of three miles from the shore, in eleven fathoms water, and bent a slip rope and buoys100 to our cables, cast off the