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" The news was soon known aboard , and put life into everything when we were getting under weigh . This filled up the measure of the agent 's unpopularity , and never after this could he get anything done by any of 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 . I knew him at once , though I should not have been more surprised to have seen the Old South steeple shoot up from the hide-house . We continued at work in this manner until the lower hold was filled to within four feet of the beams , when all hands were called aboard to commence steeving . There was but one man in the only house here , and him I shall always remember as a good specimen of a California ranger . " This called me again , and two of us went aloft , up the fore rigging , and two more up the main , upon the top-gallant yards . The heavy chain cables to be hauled and pulled about the decks with bare hands ; wet hawsers , slip-ropes , and buoyropes to be hauled aboard , dripping in water , which is running up your sleeves , and freezing ; clearing hawse under the bows ; getting under weigh and coming-to , at all hours of the night and day , and a constant look-out for rocks and sands and turns of tides ; - these are some of the disagreeables of such a navigation to a common sailor . Whether I shall ever meet him again , or whether his manuscript narrative of his adventures in the Pelew Islands , which would be creditable to him and interesting to the world , will ever see the light , I cannot tell . " I comforted him as well as I could , and promised to ask the captain to help him from the medicine-chest , and told him I had no doubt the captain would do what he could for him , as he had worked in our employ for several years , both on shore and aboard our vessels on the coast . " Sails " ( the sailmaker ) tried to comfort him , and told him he was a bloody fool to give up his grub for any woman 's daughter , and reminded him that he had told him a dozen times that he 'd never see or hear from his wife again . Beside these two men of ours , the second officer of the California and the carpenter of the Pilgrim broke down under the work , and the latter died at Santa Barbara . Friday , and a part of Saturday , we were engaged in this work , until we had thrown out all but what we wanted under our cargo on the passage home ; when , as the next day was Sunday , and a good day for smoking ship , we cleared everything out of the cabin and forecastle , made a slow fire of charcoal , birch bark , brimstone , and other matters , on the ballast in the bottom of the hold , calked up the hatches and every open seam , and pasted over the cracks of the windows , and the slides of the scuttles , and companionway . In addition to these , they had picked up at the theatres and other places a few songs of a little more genteel cast , which they were very proud of ; and I shall never forget hearing an old salt , who had broken his voice by hard drinking on shore , and bellowing from the mast-head in a hundred north-westers , with all manner of ungovernable trills and quavers - in the high notes , breaking into a rough falsetto - and in the low ones , growling along like the dying away of the boatswain 's " all hands ahoy ! " This was good-naturedly answered from the California , and she braced sharp up , and stood close upon the wind up the coast ; while we squared away our yards , and stood before the wind to the south-southwest . I have heard this story often , on board other vessels beside those of our own nation . Beside this , having begun the voyage with very few clothes , he had taken up the greater part of his wages in the slop-chest , and it was every day a losing concern to him ; and , like all the rest of the crew , he had a hearty hatred of California , and the prospect of eighteen months or two years more of hide-droghing seemed completely to break down his spirit . I shall never forget the gratitude that he expressed .