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Toward daybreak the gale abated a little , and she was just beginning to go more easily along , relieved of the pressure , when Mr. Brown , determined to give her no respite , and depending upon the wind 's subsiding as the sun rose , told us to get along the lower studding-sail . The carpenter , who was an intelligent man , and a thorough seaman , and had great influence with the crew , came down into the forecastle , and tried to induce the crew to go aft and ask the captain why he did not run , or request him , in the name of all hands , to make sail . " - The fall was stretched along the decks ; all hands laid hold ; - " Hurrah , for the last time , " said the mate ; and the anchor came to the cat-head to the tune of " Time for us to go , " with a loud chorus . We came-to , in our old berth , opposite the hide-house , whose inmates were not a little surprised to see us return . Our hearts were all up in our mouths , and we pulled away like good fellows ; for the precious packet could not be opened except by the captain . The older men of the crew , whom it would have been dangerous to have kept in the water , remained on board with the mate , to stow the hides away , as fast as they were brought off by the boats . He could not recollect his name , but said he was a " sort of an oldish man , " with white hair , and spent all his time in the bush , and along the beach , picking up flowers and shells , and such truck , and had a dozen boxes and barrels , full of them . She proved to be the brig Convoy , from the Sandwich Islands , engaged in otter hunting , among the islands which lie along the coast . No court or star chamber could proceed more summarily with a poor devil , than this trio was about to do with me ; condemning me to a punishment worse than a Botany Bay exile , and to a fate which would alter the whole current of my future life ; for two years more in California would have made me a sailor for the rest of my days . " When all sail had been set , and the decks cleared up , the California was a speck in the horizon , and the coast lay like a low cloud along the north-east . What quantities of ice-cream have been eaten , and what quantities of ice brought into the city from a distance , and sold out by the lump and the pound ! She had been acting in this way all of our forenoon watch below ; as we could tell by the washing of the water over our heads , and the heavy breaking of the seas against her bows , ( with a sound as though she were striking against a rock , ) only the thickness of the plank from our heads , as we lay in our berths , which are directly against the bows .