After a slow passage of five days, we arrived, on Wednesday, the first of April, at our old anchoring ground at San Pedro. The bay was as deserted, and looked as dreary, as before, and formed no pleasing contrast with the security and snugness of San Diego, and the activity and interest which the loading and unloading of four vessels gave to that scene. In a few days the hides began to come slowly down, and we got into the old business of rolling goods up the hill, pitching hides down, and pulling our long league off and on. Nothing of note occurred while we were lying here, except that an attempt was made to repair the small Mexican brig which had been cast away in a southeaster, and which now lay up, high and dry, over one reef of rocks and two sandbanks. Our carpenter surveyed her, and pronounced her capable of refitting, and in a few days the owners came down from the Pueblo, and, waiting for the high spring tides, with the help of our cables, kedges, and crew, got her off and afloat, after several trials. The three men at the house on shore, who had formerly been a part of her crew, now joined her, and seemed glad enough at the prospect of getting off the coast.
On board our own vessel, things went on in the common monotonous way. The excitement which immediately followed the flogging scene had passed off, but the effect of it upon the crew, and especially upon the two men themselves, remained. The different manner in which these men were affected, corresponding to their different characters, was not a little remarkable. John was a foreigner and high-tempered, and, though mortified, as anyone would be at having had the worst of an encounter, yet his chief feeling seemed to be anger; and he talked much of satisfaction and revenge, if he ever got back to Boston. But with the other, it was very different. He was an American, and had had some education; and this thing coming upon him, seemed completely to break him down. He had a feeling of the degradation that had been inflicted upon him, which the other man was incapable of. Before that, he had a good deal of fun, and mused us often with queer Negro stories—(he was from a slave state); but afterwards he seldom smiled; seemed to lose all life and elasticity; and appeared to have but one wish, and that was for the voyage to be at an end. I have often known him to draw a long sigh when he was alone, and he took but little part or interest in John’s plans of satisfaction and retaliation.
After a stay of about a fortnight, during which we slipped for one southeaster, and were at sea two days, we got underway for Santa Barbara. It was now the middle of April, and the southeaster season was nearly over; and the light, regular trade winds, which blow down the coast, began to set steadily in, during the latter part of each day. Against these, we beat slowly up to Santa Barbara—a distance of about ninety miles—in three days. There we found, lying at anchor, the large Genoese ship which we saw in the same place, on the first day of our coming upon the coast. She had been up to San Francisco, or, as it is called, “chock up to windward,” had stopped at Monterey on her way down, and was shortly to proceed to San Pedro and San Diego, and thence, taking in her cargo, to sail for Valparaiso and Cadiz. She was a large, clumsy ship, and with her topmasts stayed forward, and high poop deck,156 looked like an old woman with a crippled back. It was now the close of Lent, and on Good Friday she had all her yards a’cockbill,157 which is customary among Catholic vessels. Some also have an effigy of Judas, which the crew amuse themselves with keel-hauling and hanging by the neck from the yardarms.
XVIII
Easter Sunday—“Sail ho!”—Whales—San Juan—Romance of hide droghing—San Diego again.
The next Sunday was Easter Sunday, and as there had been no liberty
