TRADING--A BRITISH SAILOR
The next day, the cargo having been entered in due form, we began
trading. The trade-room was fitted up in the steerage, and furnished
out with the lighter goods, and with specimens of the rest of the
cargo; and M----, a young man who came out from Boston with us, before
the mast, was taken out of the forecastle, and made supercargo's clerk.
He was well qualified for the business, having been clerk in a
counting-house in Boston. He had been troubled for some time with the
rheumatism, which unfitted him for the wet and exposed duty of a sailor
on the coast. For a week or ten days all was life on board. The people
came off to look and to buy--men, women, and children; and we were
continually going in the boats, carrying goods and passengers,--for
they have no boats of their own. Everything must dress itself and come
aboard and see the new vessel, if it were only to buy a paper of pins.
The agent and his clerk managed the sales, while we were busy in the
hold or in the boats. Our cargo was an assorted one; that is, it
consisted of everything under the sun. We had spirits of all kinds,
(sold by the cask,) teas, coffee, sugars, spices, raisins, molasses,
hardware, crockery-ware, tinware, cutlery, clothing of all kinds, boots
and shoes from Lynn, calicoes and cottons from Lowell, crepes, silks;
also shawls, scarfs, necklaces, jewelry, and combs for the ladies;
furniture; and in fact, everything that can be imagined, from Chinese
fire-works to English cart-wheels--of which we had a dozen pairs with
their iron rims on.
The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make nothing
for themselves. The country abounds in grapes, yet they buy bad wines
made in Boston and brought round by us, at an immense price, and retail
it among themselves at a real (12½ cents) by the small wine-glass.
Their hides, too, which they value at two dollars in money, they give
for something which costs seventy-five cents in Boston; and buy shoes
(like as not, made of their own hides, and which have been carried
twice around Cape Horn) at three or four dollars, and "chicken-skin"
boots at fifteen dollars apiece. Things sell, on an average, at an
advance of nearly three hundred per cent upon the Boston prices. This
is partly owing to the heavy duties which the government, in their
wisdom, with the intent, no doubt, of keeping the silver in the
country, has laid upon imports. These duties, and the enormous expenses
of so long a voyage, keep all merchants, but those of heavy capital,
from engaging in the trade. Nearly two-thirds of all the articles
imported into the country from round Cape Horn, for the last six years,
have been by the single house of Bryant, Sturgis & Co., to whom our
vessel belonged, and who have a permanent agent on the coast.
This kind of business was new to us, and we liked it very well for a
few days, though we were hard at work every minute from daylight to
dark; and sometimes even later.
By being thus continually engaged in transporting passengers with their
goods, to and fro, we gained considerable knowledge of the character,
dress, and language of the people. The dress of the men was as I have
before described it. The women wore gowns of various texture--silks,
crape, calicoes, etc.,--made after the European style, except that the
sleeves were short, leaving the arm bare, and that they were loose
about the waist, having no corsets. They wore shoes of kid, or satin;
sashes or belts of bright colors; and almost always a necklace and
ear-rings. Bonnets they had none. I only saw one on the coast, and
that belonged to the wife of an American sea-captain who had settled in
San Diego, and had imported the chaotic mass of straw and ribbon, as a
choice present to his new wife. They wear their hair (which is almost
invariably black, or a very dark brown) long in their necks, sometimes
loose, and sometimes in long braids; though the married women often do
it up on a high comb. Their only protection against the sun and
weather is a large mantle which they put over their heads, drawing it
close round their faces, when they go out of doors, which is generally
only in pleasant weather. When in the house, or sitting out in front
of it, which they often do in fine weather, they usually wear a small
scarf or neckerchief of a rich pattern. A band, also, about the top of
the head, with a cross, star, or other ornament in front, is common.
Their complexions are various, depending--as well as their dress and
manner--upon their rank; or, in other words, upon the amount of Spanish
blood they can lay claim to. Those who are of pure Spanish blood,
having never intermarried with the aborigines, have clear brunette
complexions, and sometimes, even as fair as those of English women.
There are but few of these families in California; being mostly those
in official stations, or who, on the expiration of their offices, have
settled here upon property which they have acquired; and others who
have been banished for state offences. These form the aristocracy;
inter-marrying, and keeping up an exclusive system in every respect.
They can be told by their complexions, dress, manner, and also by their
speech; for, calling themselves Castilians, they are very ambitious of
speaking the pure Castilian language, which is spoken in a somewhat
corrupted dialect by the lower classes. From this upper class, they go
down by regular shades, growing more and more dark and muddy, until you
come to the pure Indian, who runs about with nothing upon him but a
small piece of cloth, kept up by a wide leather strap drawn round his
waist. Generally speaking, each person's caste is decided by the
quality of the blood, which shows itself, too plainly to be concealed,
at first sight. Yet the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be only of
quadroon or octoroon, is sufficient to raise them from the rank of
slaves, and entitle them to a suit of clothes--boots, hat, cloak,
spurs, long knife, and all complete, though coarse and dirty as may
be,--and to call themselves Españolos, and to hold property, if they
can get any.
The fondness for dress among the women is excessive, and is often the
ruin of many of them. A present of a fine mantle, or of a necklace or
pair of ear-rings, gains the favor of the greater part of them.
Nothing is more common than to see a woman living in a house of only
two rooms, and the ground for a floor, dressed in spangled satin shoes,
silk gown, high comb, and gilt, if not gold, ear-rings and necklace.
If their husbands do not dress them well enough, they will soon receive
presents from others. They used to spend whole days on board our
vessels, examining the fine clothes and ornaments, and frequently made
purchases at a rate which would have made a seamstress or waiting-maid
in Boston open her eyes.
Next to the love of dress, I was most struck with the fineness of the
voices and beauty of the intonations of both sexes. Every common
ruffian-looking fellow, with a slouched hat, blanket cloak, dirty
under-dress, and soiled leather leggins, appeared to me to be speaking
elegant Spanish. It was a pleasure, simply to listen to the sound of
the language, before I could attach any meaning to it. They have a good
deal of the Creole drawl, but it is varied with an occasional extreme
rapidity of utterance, in which they seem to skip from consonant to
consonant, until, lighting upon a broad, open vowel, they rest upon
that to restore the balance of sound. The women carry this peculiarity
of speaking to a much greater extreme than the men, who have more
evenness and stateliness of utterance. A common bullock-driver, on
horseback, delivering a message, seemed to speak like an ambassador at
an audience. In fact, they sometimes appeared to me to be a people on
whom a curse had fallen, and stripped them of everything but their
pride, their manners, and their voices.
Another thing that surprised me was the quantity of silver that was in
circulation. I certainly never saw so much silver at one time in my
life, as during the week that we were at Monterey. The truth is, they
have no credit system, no banks, and no way of investing money but in
cattle. They have no circulating medium but silver and hides--which
the sailors call "California bank notes." Everything that they buy they
must pay for in one or the other of these things. The hides they bring
down dried and doubled, in clumsy ox-carts, or upon mules' backs, and
the money they carry tied up in a handkerchief;--fifty, eighty, or an
hundred dollars and half dollars.
I had never studied Spanish while at college, and could not speak a
word, when at Juan Fernandez; but during the latter part of the passage
out, I borrowed a grammar and dictionary from the cabin, and by a
continual use of these, and a careful attention to every word that I
heard spoken, I soon got a vocabulary together, and began talking for
myself. As I soon knew more Spanish than any of the crew, (who indeed
knew none at all,) and had been at college and knew Latin, I got the
name of a great linguist, and was always sent for by the captain and
officers to get provisions, or to carry letters and messages to
different parts of the town. I was often sent to get something which I
could not tell the name of to save my life; but I liked the business,
and accordingly never pleaded ignorance. Sometimes I managed to jump
below and take a look at my dictionary before going ashore; or else I
overhauled some English resident on my way, and got the word from him;
and then, by signs, and the help of my Latin and French, contrived to
get along. This was a good exercise for me, and no doubt taught me
more than I should have learned by months of study and reading; it also
gave me opportunities of seeing the customs, characters, and domestic
arrangements of the people; beside being a great relief from the
monotony of a day spent on board ship.
Monterey, as far as my observation goes, is decidedly the pleasantest
and most civilized-looking place in California. In the centre of it is
an open square, surrounded by four lines of one-story plastered
buildings, with half a dozen cannon in the centre; some mounted, and
others not. This is the "Presidio," or fort. Every town has a
presidio in its centre; or rather, every presidio has a town built
around it; for the forts were first built by the Mexican government,
and then the people built near them for protection. The presidio here
was entirely open and unfortified. There were several officers with
long titles, and about eighty soldiers, but they were poorly paid, fed,
clothed, and disciplined. The governor-general, or, as he is commonly
called, the "general," lives here; which makes it the seat of
government. He is appointed by the central government at Mexico, and
is the chief civil and military officer. In addition to him, each town
has a commandant, who is the chief military officer, and has charge of
the fort, and of all transactions with foreigners and foreign vessels;
and two or three alcaldes and corregidores, elected by the inhabitants,
who are the civil officers. Courts and jurisprudence they have no
knowledge of. Small municipal matters are regulated by the alcaldes
and corregidores; and everything relating to the general government, to
the military, and to foreigners, by the commandants, acting under the
governor-general. Capital cases are decided by him, upon personal
inspection, if he is near; or upon minutes sent by the proper officers,
if the offender is at a distant place. No Protestant has any civil
rights, nor can he hold any property, or, indeed, remain more than a
few weeks on shore, unless he belong to some vessel. Consequently, the
Americans and English who intend to remain here become Catholics, to a
man; the current phrase among them being,--"A man must leave his
conscience at Cape Horn."
But to return to Monterey. The houses here, as everywhere else in
California, are of one story, built of clay made into large bricks,
about a foot and a half square and three or four inches thick, and
hardened in the sun. These are cemented together by mortar of the same
material, and the whole are of a common dirt-color. The floors are
generally of earth, the windows grated and without glass; and the
doors, which are seldom shut, open directly into the common room; there
being no entries. Some of the more wealthy inhabitants have glass to
their windows and board floors; and in Monterey nearly all the houses
are plastered on the outside. The better houses, too, have red tiles
upon the roofs. The common ones have two or three rooms which open
into each other, and are furnished with a bed or two, a few chairs and
tables, a looking-glass, a crucifix of some material or other, and
small daubs of paintings enclosed in glass, and representing some
miracle or martyrdom. They have no chimneys or fire-places in the
houses, the climate being such as to make a fire unnecessary; and all
their cooking is done in a small cook-house, separated from the house.
The Indians, as I have said before, do all the hard work, two or three
being attached to each house; and the poorest persons are able to keep
one, at least, for they have only to feed them and give them a small
piece of coarse cloth and a belt, for the males; and a coarse gown,
without shoes or stockings, for the females.
In Monterey there are a number of English and Americans (English or
"Ingles" all are called who speak the English language) who have
married Californians, become united to the Catholic church, and
acquired considerable property. Having more industry, frugality, and
enterprise than the natives, they soon get nearly all the trade into
their hands. They usually keep shops, in which they retail the goods
purchased in larger quantities from our vessels, and also send a good
deal into the interior, taking hides in pay, which they again barter
with our vessels. In every town on the coast there are foreigners
engaged in this kind of trade, while I recollect but two shops kept by
natives. The people are generally suspicious of foreigners, and they
would not be allowed to remain, were it not that they become good
Catholics, and by marrying natives, and bringing up their children as
Catholics and Mexicans, and not teaching them the English language,
they quiet suspicion, and even become popular and leading men. The
chief alcaldes in Monterey and Santa Barbara were both Yankees by birth.
The men in Monterey appeared to me to be always on horseback. Horses
are as abundant here as dogs and chickens were in Juan Fernandez. There
are no stables to keep them in, but they are allowed to run wild and
graze wherever they please, being branded, and having long leather
ropes, called "lassos," attached to their necks and dragging along
behind them, by which they can be easily taken. The men usually catch
one in the morning, throw a saddle and bridle upon him, and use him for
the day, and let him go at night, catching another the next day. When
they go on long journeys, they ride one horse down, and catch another,
throw the saddle and bridle upon him, and after riding him down, take a
third, and so on to the end of the journey. There are probably no
better riders in the world. They get upon a horse when only four or
five years old, their little legs not long enough to come half way over
his sides; and may almost be said to keep on him until they have grown
to him. The stirrups are covered or boxed up in front, to prevent
their catching when riding through the woods; and the saddles are large
and heavy, strapped very tight upon the horse, and have large pommels,
or loggerheads, in front, round which the "lasso" is coiled when not in
use. They can hardly go from one house to another without getting on a
horse, there being generally several standing tied to the door-posts of
the little cottages. When they wish to show their activity, they make
no use of their stirrups in mounting, but striking the horse, spring
into the saddle as he starts, and sticking their long spurs into him,
go off on the full run. Their spurs are cruel things, having four or
five rowels, each an inch in length, dull and rusty. The flanks of the
horses are often sore from them, and I have seen men come in from
chasing bullocks with their horses' hind legs and quarters covered with
blood. They frequently give exhibitions of their horsemanship, in
races, bull-baitings, etc.; but as we were not ashore during any
holyday, we saw nothing of it. Monterey is also a great place for
cock-fighting, gambling of all sorts, fandangos, and every kind of
amusement and knavery. Trappers and hunters, who occasionally arrive
here from over the Rocky mountains, with their valuable skins and furs,
are often entertained with every sort of amusement and dissipation,
until they have wasted their time and their money, and go back,
stripped of everything.
Nothing but the character of the people prevents Monterey from becoming
a great town. The soil is as rich as man could wish; climate as good
as any in the world; water abundant, and situation extremely beautiful.
The harbor, too, is a good one, being subject only to one bad wind, the
north; and though the holding-ground is not the best, yet I heard of
but one vessel's being driven ashore here. That was a Mexican brig,
which went ashore a few months before our arrival, and was a total
wreck, all the crew but one being drowned. Yet this was from the
carelessness or ignorance of the captain, who paid out all his small
cable before he let go his other anchor. The ship Lagoda, of Boston,
was there at the time, and rode out the gale in safety, without
dragging at all, or finding it necessary to strike her top-gallant
masts.
The only vessel in port with us was the little Loriotte. I frequently
went on board her, and became very well acquainted with her Sandwich
Island crew. One of them could speak a little English, and from him I
learned a good deal about them. They were well formed and active, with
black eyes, intelligent countenances, dark-olive, or, I should rather
say, copper complexions and coarse black hair, but not woolly like the
negroes. They appeared to be talking continually. In the forecastle
there was a complete Babel. Their language is extremely guttural, and
not pleasant at first, but improves as you hear it more, and is said to
have great capacity. They use a good deal of gesticulation, and are
exceedingly animated, saying with their might what their tongues find
to say. They are complete water-dogs, therefore very good in boating.
It is for this reason that there are so many of them on the coast of
California; they being very good hands in the surf. They are also
quick and active in the rigging, and good hands in warm weather; but
those who have been with them round Cape Horn, and in high latitudes,
say that they are useless in cold weather. In their dress they are
precisely like our sailors. In addition to these Islanders, the vessel
had two English sailors, who acted as boatswains over the Islanders,
and took care of the rigging. One of them I shall always remember as
the best specimen of the thoroughbred English sailor that I ever saw.
He had been to sea from a boy, having served a regular apprenticeship
of seven years, as all English sailors are obliged to do, and was then
about four or five and twenty. He was tall; but you only perceived it
when he was standing by the side of others, for the great breadth of
his shoulders and chest made him appear but little above the middle
height. His chest was as deep as it was wide; his arm like that of
Hercules; and his hand "the fist of a tar--every hair a rope-yarn."
With all this he had one of the pleasantest smiles I ever saw. His
cheeks were of a handsome brown; his teeth brilliantly white; and his
hair, of a raven black, waved in loose curls all over his head, and
fine, open forehead; and his eyes he might have sold to a duchess at
the price of diamonds, for their brilliancy. As for their color, they
were like the Irishman's pig, which would not stay to be counted, every
change of position and light seemed to give them a new hue; but their
prevailing color was black, or nearly so. Take him with his
well-varnished black tarpaulin stuck upon the back of his head; his
long locks coming down almost into his eyes; his white duck trowsers
and shirt; blue jacket; and black kerchief, tied loosely round his
neck; and he was a fine specimen of manly beauty. On his broad chest
he had stamped with India ink "Parting moments;"--a ship ready to sail;
a boat on the beach; and a girl and her sailor lover taking their
farewell. Underneath were printed the initials of his own name, and two
other letters, standing for some name which he knew better than I did.
This was very well done, having been executed by a man who made it his
business to print with India ink, for sailors, at Havre. On one of his
broad arms, he had the crucifixion, and on the other the sign of the
"foul anchor."
He was very fond of reading, and we lent him most of the books which we
had in the forecastle, which he read and returned to us the next time
we fell in with him. He had a good deal of information, and his
captain said he was a perfect seaman, and worth his weight in gold on
board a vessel, in fair weather and in foul. His strength must have
been great, and he had the sight of a vulture. It is strange that one
should be so minute in the description of an unknown, outcast sailor,
whom one may never see again, and whom no one may care to hear about;
but so it is. Some people we see under no remarkable circumstances, but
whom, for some reason or other, we never forget. He called himself
Bill Jackson; and I know no one of all my accidental acquaintances to
whom I would more gladly give a shake of the hand than to him. Whoever
falls in with him will find a handsome, hearty fellow, and a good
shipmate.
Sunday came again while we were at Monterey, but as before, it brought
us no holyday. The people on shore dressed themselves and came off in
greater numbers than ever, and we were employed all day in boating and
breaking out cargo, so that we had hardly time to eat. Our cidevant
second mate, who was determined to get liberty if it was to be had,
dressed himself in a long coat and black hat, and polished his shoes,
and went aft and asked to go ashore. He could not have done a more
imprudent thing; for he knew that no liberty would be given; and
besides, sailors, however sure they may be of having liberty granted
them always go aft in their working clothes, to appear as though they
had no reason to expect anything, and then wash, dress, and shave,
after they get their liberty. But this poor fellow was always getting
into hot water, and if there was a wrong way of doing a thing, was sure
to hit upon it. We looked to see him go aft, knowing pretty well what
his reception would be. The captain was walking the quarter-deck,
smoking his morning cigar, and F---- went as far as the break of the
deck, and there waited for him to notice him. The captain took two or
three turns, and then walking directly up to him, surveyed him from
head to foot, and lifting up his forefinger, said a word or two, in a
tone too low for us to hear, but which had a magical effect upon poor
F----. He walked forward, sprang into the forecastle, and in a moment
more made his appearance in his common clothes, and went quietly to
work again. What the captain said to him, we never could get him to
tell, but it certainly changed him outwardly and inwardly in a most
surprising manner.