The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the oldest and most inconvenient11 fashion possible: running trusses and lifts on the yards, and large hawser12 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 galley13 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 situated14 on the large creeks15 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 wink16, but passed three long nights walking fore7 and aft the boat, in the open air. When they got on board they were completely exhausted17, 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 intervals18 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 interval19 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, determined21 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, intentionally22, 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 drenching24 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 bloody25 quill-driver.”
Having collected nearly all the hides that were to be procured26, 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 axe27 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 chilly28 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 ashore29, 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 awning30 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, knotty31 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, flickering32 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 puddles33 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 wade34 off, nearly up to our hips20 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, wading35 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 racing36 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 exertions37, 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 moored38, 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, awnings39 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 Cape23 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 tarpaulin40 hat, thick and strong enough to sit upon, and made myself a complete suit of flannel41 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 celebrated42 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 salute43 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 spoke44 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 excellence45 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 herds46 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 starry47 heaven above us — the first we had seen for many weeks. Before the light northerly winds, which blow here with the regularity48 of trades, we worked slowly along, and made Point A?o 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 adobe49 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 discordant50 din3 of drums and trumpets51 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.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
northward
|
|
| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
latitude
|
|
| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
din
|
|
| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
vessel
|
|
| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
shanty
|
|
| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
fore
|
|
| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
saturation
|
|
| n.饱和(状态)；浸透 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
scurvy
|
|
| adj.下流的，卑鄙的，无礼的；n.坏血病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
inconvenient
|
|
| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
hawser
|
|
| n.大缆；大索 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
galley
|
|
| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
situated
|
|
| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
creeks
|
|
| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
wink
|
|
| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
exhausted
|
|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hips
|
|
| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
intentionally
|
|
| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
cape
|
|
| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
drenching
|
|
| n.湿透v.使湿透( drench的现在分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
procured
|
|
| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
axe
|
|
| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
chilly
|
|
| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
ashore
|
|
| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
awning
|
|
| n.遮阳篷；雨篷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
knotty
|
|
| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
flickering
|
|
| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
puddles
|
|
| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
wade
|
|
| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
wading
|
|
| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
racing
|
|
| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
exertions
|
|
| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
moored
|
|
| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
awnings
|
|
| 篷帐布 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
tarpaulin
|
|
| n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
flannel
|
|
| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
salute
|
|
| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
excellence
|
|
| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
herds
|
|
| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
starry
|
|
| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
regularity
|
|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
adobe
|
|
| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
discordant
|
|
| adj.不调和的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
trumpets
|
|
| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |