The Leucothea crept timidly out of the harbour, like a mouse out of
its hole; but had scarcely got to sea, when one of the Northers that
prevail at that season was upon us, and drove us far to the south.
Thus each time, on leaving port, we had met with storms; and each
time I had suffered from a renewal of sea-sickness, though far less
severely on each successive occasion. The young Scot, who had shared
my stateroom since leaving Rio, had now sold his berth to an American
named Lewis, and taken up his quarters with the first mate, of whom he
was an old friend and crony.
Lewis was about thirty-five years of age, of a slender habit,
and a genteel sort of stoop, as if constantly afflicted with
the stomach-ache. He possessed the most remarkable faculty of
exaggeration, which he began to display almost as soon as his foot
touched the deck. It was generally boastful, or egotistical; but,
sometimes, free from the least taint or alloy, as if the habit had
become so confirmed that he continued to indulge in it even when
no motive could be detected. He had been a sailor, and engaged for
many months in the opium trade on the coast of China, but, several
years before, had settled in Chili, where he had since enjoyed great
consideration as a master mechanic.
It was not to be expected that such a stick of drift wood should
remain long in one place, especially in the height of such a freshet
as was now sweeping past. He came on board with a large chest of
sandal wood, a Spanish sarape, and a pick-axe about a foot in length,
that looked more like a plaything for children than an instrument for
the hard hands of a California miner. But he had not been long in the
ship before the little pick-axe was regarded with a sort of mysterious
envy by all those who had been unfortunate enough to provide
themselves with the common two handed implement. In his hands it
seemed the key which was to unlock those sumless and sunless treasures
hidden in the bowels of the earth. It was a nut-picker, with which
he intended to pick out the yellow meat from its stony shell. He was
not going to burden himself with pan or rocker; but, with his pockets
stuffed with provisions, his sarape on his back, a big leathern pouch
in one hand, and his little pick-axe in the other, he would roam
leisurely and pleasantly among the mountains and over the plains for
two or three months; when he should have as much gold, so he said, as
he knew what to do with. He had acquaintance, Chilians, who had been
there before, who had promised to take him to places where there would
be hardly enough difficulty in the work to make it pleasant.
All this seemed, by some strange necromancy, to grow out of that
mysterious instrument; and, as I lay in my berth listening to his
droning narrative of what he had heard, and what he intended to do, I
was sometimes tempted to steal it while he slept. My envy, however,
was somewhat allayed by his consolatory assurances that, even without
such aid, I could make a very handsome fortune. Having hinted to him
one day my modest expectations, "Humph," he said, in a tone that
seemed to imply a degree of contempt for such poverty of spirits,
"Humph! if that's all, there's no danger but what you'll make it fast
enough; the least you can do is to dig fifty thousand this summer."
If any one else had made this assertion, it would have carried no
weight with it; but his manner was so imposing, and then there was
the little pick-axe--it seemed to give a sort of authority in such
matters. I felt grateful to him as if he had said, "I give you, out of
the nobleness and generosity of my disposition, so many thousands."
Such stories, constantly repeated, could not fail to have their
effect; the excitement in the ship visibly increased, and Lewis, by
virtue of his superior knowledge, arrogated to himself prodigious
importance. Meeting him on shore, a few days after we landed at San
Francisco, I asked him when he was going to the mines; when, to my
infinite surprise and consternation, he replied that he had made
up his mind not to go at all. Nothing could have given my faith
such a fearful shock; but just then, when it seemed about to perish
altogether, it was fortunately confirmed in a new and surprising
manner, an account of which will be given hereafter. Lewis, as well
as my last room-mate, was something of a literary character, and the
extent of his acquirements may be inferred from the fact that Lippard,
and Rev. G. Chauncey Burr--I love, as the good vicar says, to give the
whole name--were his favourite authors.
The storm having, at length, blown itself out, the ship began to
present a scene of unusual activity. The hurricane deck was filled
with tent-makers and boat-builders, a carpenter's bench was put up
amidships, and a blacksmith's forge puffed and glowed under the
forward galley. Knapsacks, powder-horns, pick-axes, boatsails,
hammocks, and gold-washers were made or refitted; and those who
were already provided with these various articles, or expected
to have no use for them, caught the busy infection, and began to
schrimpschong with most laudable perseverance. Schrimpschonging
is a word of most varied significance. It is derived from the low
Dutch, and includes all those kinds of labour between the useful
and ornamental, but verging more on the latter. Whittling is the
simplest form of the disease; most kinds of ladies' work, all those
ingenious inventions in silk and worsted, must be regarded as still
more alarming indications. With us, it manifested itself chiefly
in making ornamental dippers out of cocoanut shells, and a certain
necromantic puzzle, for which one of the crew, himself a confirmed
schrimpschonger, had furnished the model.
We began also at this time to compare our different plans for the
approaching struggle, all different, but all alike monstrous and
impossible. From my present advanced position I look back upon our
ignorant simplicity, with smiling pity, as if I possessed a duplicate
personality, and had, in my present self, no concern in any of those
absurd fictions that then imposed themselves upon us for truth.
I have already given some hints of our rude geographical and
geological knowledge of California. The rivers there occupied a very
prominent position. They were broad, placid streams, flowing gently
between green banks. Several parties in the ship were now at work
painting and enlarging the boats they had brought with them for the
purpose of ascending these favourable rivers. They talked, with the
quiet complacency of superior wisdom, of sailing along from point to
point; searching out the richest portions--now shooting a fat buck,
as he stooped to quench his thirst--now digging out a peck of nuggets
like so many clams--now gliding through the unbroken forest--and
anon shooting out into the sun in front of some little encampment
of miners--till, having filled the boat with gold, they would throw
overboard all their tools, and, with colours flying and guns firing,
drop down the river to the bay, and return home.
It was, indeed, a most seductive picture, glowing like an Eastern
tale, or the stories of those old buccaneers rifling a Spanish
galleon--how the word seems to roll in riches--and aroused our desires
to go a gold hunting in the same privateering fashion. Some one
suggested that there might be steamboats or schooners on the rivers,
that would carry us up as far as we wished to go; but this idea met
with little encouragement from any one, and was scouted by all the
boat-builders with the highest indignation.
Another subject of nearly equal interest was the great variety of
gold-washers, from which we had to make a selection. One party brought
out a heavy iron tub, as big as a cartwheel, and exhibited its mode
of operation with a ludicrous mixture of doubt and complacency, as
if they were afraid of it themselves. It worked admirably when there
was nothing in it except a small quantity of sand and shot; and
then, it was so very heavy; surely no one would have made anything
so clumsy, unless for certain advantages not possessed by a simpler
construction. But the name was still more imposing, and was evidently
the cunning device of one who had no faith in Shakspeare. "The patent
centrifugal gold-washer and California chrysolite," stamped in honest
iron letters into the very substance of the machine; could anything
be more satisfactory? On landing at San Francisco, we found the beach
strewed with similar contrivances, that we could have bought "as cheap
as stinking mackerel."
We had expected to celebrate the 4th of July in San Francisco; but
the day came, and found us still south of the equator. Not to lose
entirely, however, the benefit of the occasion, we determined to
show ourselves as patriotic and as independent as our unfavourable
circumstances would allow. In the morning there was the usual military
parade, but on a scale of unusual magnificence. Charley Bainbridge
arrayed himself, as the law directs, in knapsack and cartouch box; and
shouldering a rusty musket, marched with measured step several times
round the ship; looking, all the while, over both shoulders to see the
admiring crowd that followed at his heels.
He included in his single person all the varied pomp of captain,
lieutenant, private, and musicians; his whistling was indeed
extraordinary, and only to be surpassed by that now classic Ethiop who
used to keep a barber's pole, so it was said, just out of the Bowery,
and was wont to entertain his customers by whistling two tunes at
once, one out of each corner of his mouth.
Like the Irishman who surrounded his enemy, or Kehama doing battle
with the king of hell, he seemed to multiply himself for the occasion.
He walked
Forth without more train
Accompanied than with his own complete
Perfections; in himself was all his state,
More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits
On princes, when their rich retinue long,
Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold,
Dazzles the crowd, and sets them all agape.
"He carried arms, and he presented arms,--he faced to the left, he
faced to the right, and he faced to the right-about;" "he wheeled
forward, and he wheeled backward, and he wheeled into echelon--he
marched and he counter-marched, by grand divisions, by simple
divisions, and by subdivisions--by platoons, by sections, and by
files--in quick time, in slow time, and in no time at all; till having
gone through all the evolutions of two great armies, including the
eighteen manoeuvres of Dundas," and charged bayonets with signal
success upon an unlucky dog that had dared to bark at him, though
as his owner alleged in excuse, not as captain but as private, he
dismissed his company, and we all sat down to dinner.
By clubbing together our scanty resources, we succeeded in getting up
quite a tolerable repast. True, our meats were something old,--our
peas and green corn could hardly be distinguished from each other,
except by sight,--and our patriotism, too, was getting a little
musty; but our wine was sufficiently new to make amends, and we were
none of us disposed to be hypercritical. Toasts were given as usual;
but, though they were received with shouts of laughter, none, that I
remember, would bear repeating. They would suffer by this preserving
process even more than the meats and vegetables that accompanied them.
Lewis, who had not been among us long enough to become imbued with
the prevailing spirit of discontent, offered, for his sentiment, a
wish that we might all find ourselves, on the succeeding anniversary,
again assembled on board the Leucothea, each one with his pile. This
toast was received with a wonderful degree of coolness, considering
the final clause; but not even that could reconcile us to the idea
of repeating such a voyage in such an ill-omened craft--that pill
required more gilding.
But alas for the hopes that mocked us! and of which his words were
but a feeble exponent. Just in proportion to their brilliancy, was
their vanity; as the soap-bubble becomes the brighter the more it is
attenuated. The succeeding anniversary came, and found not a few of
our number in the grave; while a still larger proportion, wasted by
toil and sickness, and harassed by disappointment, cursed the day that
they had ever heard of California.
In the evening a grand shingarnee was held on the quarter-deck, when
an intellectual repast was provided of about the same quality as our
dinner. There was a young fellow among the steerage passengers who,
from some real or fancied resemblance to that individual, had received
the cognomen of Smike, though "the Artful Dodger" would have been
perhaps more appropriate. He seemed afraid that some one was about
to lay hold of him from behind, and hence kept himself in constant
readiness for flight; so that his gait became the debateable ground
between walking and running, where one ends, and the other has not
yet begun. This gave his body a slight inclination forward; and the
agreeable slope thus produced, found a fitting termination in the
short skirts of his fuzzy, blue roundabout, that projected a few
inches from his person as if, like the eaves of a house, intended to
shoot off the rain. The beholder, on seeing this jacket for the first
time, was unavoidably impressed with the belief that it had originally
started with the intention of reaching the knees, but having been
stunted in its growth, had stopped short half-way between that point
and the waist, which gave the wearer somewhat of the appearance of
a rooster who has shed his feathers, and is waiting for his tail to
regain its full dimensions before he ventures to indulge in his wonted
strut. His hat, which he wore on the back of his head as if to restore
his centre of gravity, seemed in truth ill-fitted for the purpose,
both rim and crown having been sadly shorn of their fair proportions.
All Shakspeare's seven ages were huddled together in his face, his
chin being the seventh. To look at that alone, you would affirm he
was a hundred years old; each feature led to a different conclusion,
but all together involved the question in painful uncertainty. If you
paid to his nose the reverence due to old age, a glance at his mouth
made you blush with indignation at having wasted your courtesies on a
boy; but if his mouth tempted you to treat him as an equal, his eyes
frowned reproach upon such unbecoming familiarity. His physiognomy
thus became a perpetual trap to the unwary, as it was an enigma that
defied all the speculations of the curious.
This boy-Methuselah was the first performer, and his part was that
much abused monologue of Hamlet, "To be or not to be." He took his
station on the quarter deck, with the mizen mast at his back; and the
spectators stood, or sat, or leaned, wherever they could find support.
I do not remember whether he decided to be or not to be, but his
effort was received with immense approbation, and in honour of this
achievement, he was henceforth called Hamlet, in addition to his other
titles.
The next performer was a very Hercules of a fellow, who, if he had
been cut into pieces, would have made three of his diminutive rival.
He had formerly been an actor, and it was easy to see that he must
have gained great success. He bellowed, he muttered, he whispered, he
hissed,--he stamped, and the hollow deck resounded; he spread apart
his Colossus-like legs, and raised his arms as if to hold up the sky;
till having run through all those parts so envied by Bully Bottom, he
suddenly broke away in a whirlwind of passion, and resumed his place
among the admiring spectators.
During the remainder of the month little occurred worthy of notice.
Our water again failed, and we were once more put on an allowance of
only three pints a day, and two of these we gave the steward for our
coffee. The beans and rice in which we had luxuriated were no longer
seen on our table, for there was no water to cook them. Once a week we
were summoned into the cabin to receive our hebdomedal allowance of
butter. On the steward's table, in his little pantry, were set out,
in tempting array, on half sheets of letter paper some forty pats of
butter, each weighing exactly four ounces, and, like the candy in a
confectioner's window, exhibiting all the colours of the rainbow. Not
only candy, but many other articles, are all the more pleasing for
this variety, but butter possesses no such versatility; here yellow is
your only colour; blue, and green, and red, though elsewhere highly
becoming, should be rigidly excluded. Yet I remember hearing the
steward trying to convince one young fellow, who rather demurred about
taking the fortieth and sole remaining pat, as being more curiously
coloured than the rest, that it was nothing more than natural, since
streaked and speckled cows always gave butter of the same pattern.