Our place of destination had been Monterey, but as we were to the
northward of it when the wind hauled ahead, we made a fair wind for
San Francisco. This large bay, which lies in latitude 37° 58', was
discovered by Sir Francis Drake, and by him represented to be (as
indeed it is) a magnificent bay, containing several good harbors,
great depth of water, and surrounded by a fertile and finely wooded
country. About thirty miles from the mouth of the bay, and on the
southeast side, is a high point, upon which the Presidio is built.
Behind this point is the little harbor, or bight, called Yerba
Buena, in which trading-vessels anchor, and, near it, the Mission
of Dolores. There was no other habitation on this side of the Bay,
except a shanty of rough boards put up by a man named Richardson,
who was doing a little trading between the vessels and the
Indians.[1] Here, at anchor, and the only vessel, was a brig under
Russian colors, from Sitka, in Russian America, which had come down
to winter, and to take in a supply of tallow and grain, great
quantities of which latter article are raised in the Missions at
the head of the bay. The second day after our arrival we went on
board the brig, it being Sunday, as a matter of curiosity; and
there was enough there to gratify it. Though no larger than the
Pilgrim, she had five or six officers, and a crew of between twenty
and thirty; and such a stupid and greasy-looking set, I never saw
before. Although it was quite comfortable weather and we had nothing
on but straw hats, shirts, and duck trousers, and were barefooted,
they had, every man of them, doubled-soled boots, coming up to the
knees, and well greased; thick woollen trousers, frocks,
waistcoats, pea-jackets, woollen caps, and everything in true Nova
Zembla rig; and in the warmest days they made no change. The
clothing of one of these men would weigh nearly as much as that
of half our crew. They had brutish faces, looked like the antipodes
of sailors, and apparently dealt in nothing but grease. They lived
upon grease; eat it, drank it, slept in the midst of it, and their
clothes were covered with it. To a Russian, grease is the greatest
luxury. They looked with greedy eyes upon the tallow-bags as they
were taken into the vessel, and, no doubt, would have eaten one up
whole, had not the officer kept watch over it. The grease appeared
to fill their pores, and to come out in their hair and on their
faces. It seems as if it were this saturation which makes them
stand cold and rain so well. If they were to go into a warm climate,
they would melt and die of the scurvy.
The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the
oldest and most inconvenient fashion possible: running trusses and
lifts on the yards, and large hawser cables, coiled all over the
decks, and served and parcelled in all directions. The topmasts,
top-gallant-masts, and studding-sail booms were nearly black for
want of scraping, and the decks would have turned the stomach of a
man-of-war's-man. The galley was down in the forecastle; and there
the crew lived, in the midst of the steam and grease of the
cooking, in a place as hot as an oven, and apparently never
cleaned out. Five minutes in the forecastle was enough for us, and
we were glad to get into the open air. We made some trade with
them, buying Indian curiosities, of which they had a great number;
such as bead-work, feathers of birds, fur moccasons, &c. I
purchased a large robe, made of the skins of some animal, dried
and sewed nicely together, and covered all over on the outside
with thick downy feathers, taken from the breasts of various
birds, and arranged with their different colors so as to make a
brilliant show.
A few days after our arrival the rainy season set in, and for
three weeks it rained almost every hour, without cessation. This
was bad for our trade, for the collecting of hides is managed
differently in this port from what it is in any other on the
coast. The Mission of Dolores, near the anchorage, has no trade at
all; but those of San José, Santa Clara, and others situated on
the large creeks or rivers which run into the bay, and distant
between fifteen and forty miles from the anchorage, do a greater
business in hides than any in California. Large boats, or
launches, manned by Indians, and capable of carrying from five to
six hundred hides apiece, are attached to the Missions, and sent
down to the vessels with hides, to bring away goods in return.
Some of the crews of the vessels are obliged to go and come in the
boats, to look out for the hides and goods. These are favorite
expeditions with the sailors in fine weather; but now, to be gone
three or four days, in open boats, in constant rain, without any
shelter, and with cold food, was hard service. Two of our men went
up to Santa Clara in one of these boats, and were gone three days,
during all which time they had a constant rain, and did not sleep
a wink, but passed three long nights walking fore and aft the
boat, in the open air. When they got on board they were completely
exhausted, and took a watch below of twelve hours. All the hides,
too, that came down in the boats were soaked with water, and unfit
to put below, so that we were obliged to trice them up to dry, in
the intervals of sunshine or wind, upon all parts of the vessel.
We got up tricing-lines from the jib-boom-end to each arm of the
fore yard, and thence to the main and cross-jack yard-arms.
Between the tops, too, and the mast-heads, from the fore to the
main swifters, and thence to the mizzen rigging, and in all
directions athwartships, tricing-lines were run, and strung with
hides. The head stays and guys, and the spritsail yard were lined,
and, having still more, we got out the swinging-booms, and strung
them and the forward and after guys with hides. The rail, fore and
aft, the windlass, capstan, the sides of the ship, and every
vacant place on deck, were covered with wet hides, on the least
sign of an interval for drying. Our ship was nothing but a mass of
hides, from the cat-harpins to the water's edge, and from the
jib-boom-end to the taffrail.
One cold, rainy evening, about eight o'clock, I received orders to
get ready to start for San José at four the next morning, in one
of these Indian boats, with four days' provisions. I got my
oil-cloth clothes, southwester, and thick boots ready, and turned
into my hammock early, determined to get some sleep in advance, as
the boat was to be alongside before daybreak. I slept on till all
hands were called in the morning; for, fortunately for me, the
Indians, intentionally, or from mistaking their orders, had gone
off alone in the night, and were far out of sight. Thus I escaped
three or four days of very uncomfortable service.
Four of our men, a few days afterwards, went up in one of the
quarter-boats to Santa Clara, to carry the agent, and remained out
all night in a drenching rain, in the small boat, in which there
was not room for them to turn round; the agent having gone up to
the Mission and left the men to their fate, making no provision
for their accommodation, and not even sending them anything to
eat. After this they had to pull thirty miles, and when they got
on board were so stiff that they could not come up the gangway
ladder. This filled up the measure of the agent's unpopularity,
and never after this could he get anything done for him by the
crew; and many a delay and vexation, and many a good ducking in
the surf, did he get to pay up old scores, or ``square the yards
with the bloody quill-driver.''
Having collected nearly all the hides that were to be procured, we
began our preparations for taking in a supply of wood and water,
for both of which San Francisco is the best place on the coast. A
small island, about two leagues from the anchorage, called by us
``Wood Island,'' and by the Mexicans ``Isla de los Angeles,'' was
covered with trees to the water's edge; and to this two of our
crew, who were Kennebec men, and could handle an axe like a
plaything, were sent every morning to cut wood, with two boys to
pile it up for them. In about a week they had cut enough to last
us a year, and the third mate, with myself and three others, were
sent over in a large, schooner-rigged, open launch, which we had
hired of the Mission, to take in the wood, and bring it to the
ship. We left the ship about noon, but owing to a strong head
wind, and a tide which here runs four or five knots, did not get
into the harbor, formed by two points of the island, where the
boats lie, until sundown. No sooner had we come-to, than a strong
southeaster, which had been threatening us all day, set in, with
heavy rain and a chilly air. We were in rather a bad situation: an
open boat, a heavy rain, and a long night; for in winter, in this
latitude, it was dark nearly fifteen hours. Taking a small skiff
which we had brought with us, we went ashore, but discovered no
shelter, for everything was open to the rain; and, collecting a
little wood, which we found by lifting up the leaves and brush,
and a few mussels, we put aboard again, and made the best
preparations in our power for passing the night. We unbent the
mainsail, and formed an awning with it over the after part of the
boat, made a bed of wet logs of wood, and, with our jackets on,
lay down, about six o'clock, to sleep. Finding the rain running
down upon us, and our jackets getting wet through, and the rough,
knotty logs rather indifferent couches, we turned out; and, taking
an iron pan which we brought with us, we wiped it out dry, put
some stones around it, cut the wet bark from some sticks, and,
striking a light, made a small fire in the pan. Keeping some
sticks near to dry, and covering the whole over with a roof of
boards, we kept up a small fire, by which we cooked our mussels,
and ate them, rather for an occupation than from hunger. Still it
was not ten o'clock, and the night was long before us, when one of
the party produced an old pack of Spanish cards from his
monkey-jacket pocket, which we hailed as a great windfall; and,
keeping a dim, flickering light by our fagots, we played game
after game, till one or two o'clock, when, becoming really tired,
we went to our logs again, one sitting up at a time, in turn, to
keep watch over the fire. Toward morning the rain ceased, and the
air became sensibly colder, so that we found sleep impossible, and
sat up, watching for daybreak. No sooner was it light than we went
ashore, and began our preparations for loading our vessel. We were
not mistaken in the coldness of the weather, for a white frost was
on the ground, and-- a thing we had never seen before in
California-- one or two little puddles of fresh water were skimmed
over with a thin coat of ice. In this state of the weather, and
before sunrise, in the gray of the morning, we had to wade off,
nearly up to our hips in water, to load the skiff with the wood by
armfuls. The third mate remained on board the launch, two more men
stayed in the skiff to load and manage it, and all the water-work,
as usual, fell upon the two youngest of us; and there we were with
frost on the ground, wading forward and back, from the beach to
the boat, with armfuls of wood, barefooted, and our trousers
rolled up. When the skiff went off with her load, we could only
keep our feet from freezing by racing up and down the beach on the
hard sand, as fast as we could go. We were all day at this work,
and toward sundown, having loaded the vessel as deep as she would
bear, we hove up our anchor and made sail, beating out of the bay.
No sooner had we got into the large bay than we found a strong
tide setting us out to seaward, a thick fog which prevented our
seeing the ship, and a breeze too light to set us against the
tide, for we were as deep as a sand-barge. By the utmost
exertions, we saved ourselves from being carried out to sea, and
were glad to reach the leewardmost point of the island, where we
came-to, and prepared to pass another night more uncomfortable
than the first, for we were loaded up to the gunwale, and had only
a choice among logs and sticks for a resting-place. The next
morning we made sail at slack water, with a fair wind, and got on
board by eleven o'clock, when all hands were turned-to to unload
and stow away the wood, which took till night.
Having now taken in all our wood, the next morning a water-party
was ordered off with all the casks. From this we escaped, having
had a pretty good siege with the wooding. The water-party were
gone three days, during which time they narrowly escaped being
carried out to sea, and passed one day on an island, where one of
them shot a deer, great numbers of which overrun the islands and
hills of San Francisco Bay.
While not off on these wood and water parties, or up the rivers to
the Missions, we had easy times on board the ship. We were moored,
stem and stern, within a cable's length of the shore, safe from
southeasters, and with little boating to do; and, as it rained
nearly all the time, awnings were put over the hatchways, and all
hands sent down between decks, where we were at work, day after
day, picking oakum, until we got enough to calk the ship all over,
and to last the whole voyage. Then we made a whole suit of gaskets
for the voyage home, a pair of wheel-ropes from strips of green
hide, great quantities of spun-yarn, and everything else that
could be made between decks. It being now midwinter and in high
latitude, the nights were very long, so that we were not turned-to
until seven in the morning, and were obliged to knock off at five
in the evening, when we got supper; which gave us nearly three
hours before eight bells, at which time the watch was set.
As we had now been about a year on the coast, it was time to think
of the voyage home; and, knowing that the last two or three months
of our stay would be very busy ones, and that we should never have
so good an opportunity to work for ourselves as the present, we
all employed our evenings in making clothes for the passage home,
and more especially for Cape Horn. As soon as supper was over and
the kids cleared away, and each man had taken his smoke, we seated
ourselves on our chests round the lamp, which swung from a beam,
and went to work each in his own way, some making hats, others
trousers, others jackets, &c., &c., and no one was idle. The boys
who could not sew well enough to make their own clothes laid up
grass into sinnet for the men, who sewed for them in return.
Several of us clubbed together and bought a large piece of twilled
cotton, which we made into trousers and jackets, and, giving them
several coats of linseed oil, laid them by for Cape Horn. I also
sewed and covered a tarpaulin hat, thick and strong enough to sit
upon, and made myself a complete suit of flannel underclothing for
bad weather. Those who had no southwester caps made them; and
several of the crew got up for themselves tarpaulin jackets and
trousers, lined on the inside with flannel. Industry was the order
of the day, and every one did something for himself; for we knew
that as the season advanced, and we went further south, we should
have no evenings to work in.
Friday, December 25th. This day was Christmas; and, as it rained
all day long, and there were no hides to take in, and nothing
especial to do, the captain gave us a holiday (the first we had
had, except Sundays, since leaving Boston), and plum-duff for
dinner. The Russian brig, following the Old Style, had celebrated
their Christmas eleven days before, when they had a grand blow-out,
and (as our men said) drank, in the forecastle, a barrel of gin,
ate up a bag of tallow, and made a soup of the skin.
Sunday, December 27th. We had now finished all our business at
this port, and, it being Sunday, we unmoored ship and got under
way, firing a salute to the Russian brig, and another to the
presidio, which were both answered. The commandante of the
presidio, Don Guadalupe Vallejo, a young man, and the most
popular, among the Americans and English, of any man in
California, was on board when we got under way. He spoke English
very well, and was suspected of being favorably inclined to
foreigners.
We sailed down this magnificent bay with a light wind, the tide,
which was running out, carrying us at the rate of four or five
knots. It was a fine day; the first of entire sunshine we had had
for more than a month. We passed directly under the high cliff on
which the presidio is built, and stood into the middle of the bay,
from whence we could see small bays making up into the interior,
large and beautifully wooded islands, and the mouths of several
small rivers. If California ever becomes a prosperous country,
this bay will be the centre of its prosperity. The abundance of
wood and water; the extreme fertility of its shores; the
excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as
any in the world; and its facilities for navigation, affording the
best anchoring-grounds in the whole western coast of America,--
all fit it for a place of great importance.
The tide leaving us, we came to anchor near the mouth of the bay,
under a high and beautifully sloping hill, upon which herds of
hundreds and hundreds of red deer, and the stag, with his high
branching antlers, were bounding about, looking at us for a
moment, and then starting off, affrighted at the noises which we
made for the purpose of seeing the variety of their beautiful
attitudes and motions.
At midnight, the tide having turned, we hove up our anchor and
stood out of the bay, with a fine starry heaven above us,-- the
first we had seen for many weeks. Before the light northerly
winds, which blow here with the regularity of trades, we worked
slowly along, and made Point Año Nuevo, the northerly point of the
Bay of Monterey, on Monday afternoon. We spoke, going in, the brig
Diana, of the Sandwich Islands, from the Northwest Coast, last
from Sitka. She was off the point at the same time with us, but
did not get in to the anchoring-ground until an hour or two after
us. It was ten o'clock on Tuesday morning when we came to anchor.
Monterey looked just as it did when I saw it last, which was
eleven months before, in the brig Pilgrim. The pretty lawn on
which it stands, as green as sun and rain could make it; the pine
wood on the south; the small river on the north side; the adobe
houses, with their white walls and red-tiled roofs, dotted about
on the green; the low, white presidio, with its soiled tri-colored
flag flying, and the discordant din of drums and trumpets of the
noon parade,-- all brought up the scene we had witnessed here with
so much pleasure nearly a year before, when coming from a long
voyage, and from our unprepossessing reception at Santa Barbara.
It seemed almost like coming to a home.
[1] The next year Richardson built a one-story adobe house on the
same spot, which was long afterwards known as the oldest house in
the great city of San Francisco.