The Ayacucho got to the anchoring ground about half an hour before us, and was furling her sails when we came up to it. This picking up your cables is a very nice piece of work. It requires some seamanship to do it, and come to at your former moorings, without letting go another anchor. Captain Wilson was remarkable, among the sailors on the coast, for his skill in doing this; and our captain never let go a second anchor during all the time that I was with him. Coming a little to windward of our buoy, we clewed up the light sails, backed our main topsail, and lowered a boat, which pulled off, and made fast a spare hawser to the buoy on the end of the slip rope. We brought the other end to the captain, and hove in upon it until we came to the slip rope, which we took to the windlass, and walked her up to her chain, the captain helping her by backing and filling the sails. The chain is then passed through the hawsehole and round the windlass, and bitted, the slip rope taken round outside and brought into the stern port, and she is safe in her old berth. After we had got through, the mate told us that this was a small touch of California, the like of which we must expect to have through the winter.
After we had furled the sails and got dinner, we saw the Loriotte nearing, and she had her anchor before night. At sundown we went ashore again, and found the Loriotte’s boat waiting on the beach. The Sandwich Islander who could speak English, told us that he had been up to the town; that our agent, Mr. R⸺, and some other passengers, were going to Monterey with us, and that we were to sail the same night. In a few minutes Captain T⸺, with two gentlemen and one female, came down, and we got ready to go off. They had a good deal of baggage, which we put into the bows of the boat, and then two of us took the señora108 in our arms, and waded with her through the water, and put her down safely in the stern. She appeared much amused with the transaction, and her husband was perfectly satisfied, thinking any arrangement good which saved his wetting his feet. I pulled the after oar, so that I heard the conversation, and learned that one of the men, who, as well as I could see in the darkness, was a young-looking man, in the European dress, and covered up in a large cloak, was the agent of the firm to which our vessel belonged; and the other, who was dressed in the Spanish dress of the country, was a brother of our captain, who had been many years a trader on the coast, and had married the lady who was in the boat. She was a delicate, dark-complexioned young woman, and of one of the best families in California. I also found that we were to sail the same night. As soon as we got on board, the boats were hoisted up, the sails loosed, the windlass manned, the slip ropes and gear cast off; and after about twenty minutes of heaving at the windlass, making sail, and bracing yards, we were well underway, and going with a fair wind up the coast to Monterey. The Loriotte got underway at the same time, and was also bound up to Monterey, but as she took a different course from us, keeping the land aboard,109 while we kept well out to sea, we soon lost sight of her. We had a fair wind, which is something unusual when going up, as the prevailing wind is the north, which blows directly down the coast; whence the northern are called the windward, and the southern the leeward ports.
XI
Passage up the coast—Monterey.
We got clear of the islands before sunrise the next morning, and by twelve o’clock were out of the canal, and off Point Conception, the place where we first made the land upon our arrival. This is the largest point on the coast, and is uninhabited headland, stretching out into the Pacific, and has the reputation of being very windy. Any vessel does well which gets by it without a gale, especially in the winter season. We were going along with studding sails set on both sides, when, as we came round the point, we had to haul our wind,110 and take in the lee studding sails. As the brig came more upon the wind, she felt it more, and we doused the skysails, but kept the weather studding sails on her, bracing the yards forward so that the swinging boom nearly touched the spritsail yard. She now lay over to it, the wind was freshening, and the captain was evidently “dragging on to her.” His brother and Mr. R⸺, looking a little squally,111 said something to him, but he only answered that he knew the vessel and what she would carry. He was evidently showing off his vessel, and letting them know how he could carry sail. He stood up to windward, holding on by the backstays, and looking up at the sticks, to see how much they would bear; when a puff came which settled the matter. Then it was “haul down,” and “clew up,” royals, flying jib, and studding sails, all at once. There was
