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We accordingly made up a packet of letters , almost every one writing , and dating them " January 1st , 1836 . The only other vessel in port was the Russian government bark , from Asitka , mounting eight guns , ( four of which we found to be Quakers , ) and having on board the ex-governor , who was going in her to Mazatlan , and thence overland to Vera Cruz . When they got on board , they were completely exhausted , and took a watch below of twelve hours . I got a knot of six or eight about me , and no one could have had a more attentive audience . I knew that it would be hopeless to attempt to prevail upon any of the ship 's crew to take twelve months more upon the California in the brig . Having filled the ship up , in this way , to within four feet of her beams , the process of steeving commenced , by which an hundred hides are got into a place where one could not be forced by hand , and which presses the hides to the utmost , sometimes starting the beams of the ship , resembling in its effects the jack-screws which are used in stowing cotton . Though we had now the same wind , and were in the same latitude with the Pilgrim on her passage out , yet we were nearly twelve hundred miles to the westward of her course ; for the captain , depending upon the strong south-west winds which prevail in high southern latitudes during the winter months , took the full advantage of the trades , and stood well to the westward , so far that we passed within about two hundred miles of Ducie 's Island . When this was arranged , and the ways greased upon which the book was to slide , the falls of the tackles were stretched forward , and all hands tallied on , and bowsed away until the book was well entered ; when these tackles were nippered , straps and toggles clapped upon the falls , and two more luff tackles hooked on , with dogs , in the same manner ; and thus , by luff upon luff , the power was multiplied , until into a pile in which one hide more could not be crowded by hand , an hundred or an hundred and fifty were often driven in by this complication of purchases . One cold , rainy evening , about eight o'clock , I received orders to get ready to start for San Jose at four the next morning , in one of these Indian boats , with four days ' provisions . At eight bells , the watch was called , and we came on deck , one hand going aft to take the wheel , and another and another going to the galley to get the grub for dinner . I read nearly all day , until sundown ; when , as soon as supper was over , as I had nearly finished , they got a light from the galley ; and by skipping what was less interesting , I carried them through to the marriage of Everard , and the restoration of Charles the Second , before eight o'clock . In our first attempt to double the Cape , when we came up to the latitude of it , we were nearly seventeen hundred miles to the westward , but , in running for the straits of Magellan , we stood so far to the eastward , that we made our second attempt at a distance of not more than four or five hundred miles ; and we had great hopes , by this means , to run clear of the ice ; thinking that the easterly gales , which had prevailed for a long time , would have driven it to the westward . Between daylight and dark - that is , between nine o'clock and three - we saw thirty-four ice islands , of various sizes ; some no bigger than the hull of our vessel , and others apparently nearly as large as the one that we first saw ; though , as we went on , the islands became smaller and more numerous ; and , at sundown of this day , a man at the mast-head saw large fields of floating ice called " field-ice " at the south-east . The last night they kept it up in great style , and were getting into a high-go , when the captain called us off to go aboard , for , it being south-easter season , he was afraid to remain on shore long ; and it was well he did not , for that very night , we slipped our cables , as a crowner to our fun ashore , and stood off before a south-easter , which lasted twelve hours , and returned to our anchorage the next day . 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 !