and the chain came slowly in over the
windlass. The mate, between the knight-
heads, exhausted all his official rhetoric in
calls of Heave with a will! '— ' Heave
hearty, men!-heave hearty!'-' Heave, 5
and raise the dead!'-Heave, and
away!' &c., &c.; but it would not do.
Nobody broke his back or his handspike
by his efforts. And when the cat-tackle-
fall was strung along, and all hands-
cook, steward, and all— laid hold, to cat
the anchor, instead of the lively song of
'Cheerly, men!' in which all hands join
in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy,
silent pull, and, as sailors say a song is 15
as good as ten men, the anchor came to
the cat-head pretty slowly. 'Give us
"Cheerly!"' said the mate; but there was
no cheerly' for us, and we did without
it. The captain walked the quarter-deck, 20
and said not a word. He must have seen
the change, but there was nothing which
he could notice officially.

of rough boards, and looking like the great barns in which ice is stored on the borders of the large ponds near Boston, with piles of hides standing round them, and men in red shirts and large straw hats walking in and out of the doors. These were the Hide Houses. Of the vessels: one, a short, clumsy little hermaphrodite brig, we recognized as our old acquaintance, 10 the Loriotte; another, with sharp bows and raking masts, newly painted and tarred, and glittering in the morning sun, with the blood-red banner and cross of St. George at her peak, was the handsome Ayacucho. The third was a large ship, with top-gallant-masts housed and sails unbent, and looking as rusty and worn as two years' 'hide droghing' could make her. This was the Lagoda. As we drew near, carried rapidly along by the current, we overhauled our chain, and clewed up the top-sails. Let go the anchor!' said the captain; but either there was not chain enough forward of the windlass, or the anchor went down foul, or we had too much headway on, for it did not bring us up. Pay out chain!' shouted the captain; and we gave it to her; but it would not do. Before the other anchor could be let go, we drifted down, broadside on, and went smash into the Lagoda. Her crew were at breakfast in the forecastle, and her cook, seeing us coming, rushed out of his galley, and called up the officers and men.

We sailed leisurely down the coast before a light, fair wind, keeping the land 25 well aboard, and saw two other missions, looking like blocks of white plaster, shining in the distance; one of which, situated on the top of a high hill, was San Juan Capistrano, under which vessels 30 sometimes come to anchor, in the summer season, and take off hides. At sunset on the second day we had a large and well-wooded headland directly before us, behind which lay the little harbor of San 35 Diego. We were becalmed off this point all night, but the next morning, which was Saturday, the 14th of March, having a good breeze, we stood round the point, and, hauling our wind, brought the little 40 harbor, which is rather the outlet of a small river, right before us. Every one was desirous to get a view of the new place. A chain of high hills, beginning at the point (which was on our larboard 45 hand coming in), protected the harbor on the north and west, and ran off into the interior, as far as the eye could reach. On the other sides the land was low and green, but without trees. The entrance 50 is so narrow as to admit but one vessel at a time, the current swift, and the channel runs so near to a low, stony point that the ship's sides appeared almost to touch it. There was no town in sight, but on 55 larboard bow into our starboard quar

the smooth sand beach, abreast, and within a cable's length of which three vessels lay moored, were four large houses, built

Fortunately, no great harm was done. Her jib-boom passed between our fore and main masts, carrying away some of our rigging, and breaking down the rail. She lost her martingale. This brought us up, and, as they paid out chain, we swung clear of them, and let go the other anchor; but this had as bad luck as the first, for, before any one perceived it, we were drifting down upon the Loriotte. The captain now gave out his orders rapidly and fiercely, sheeting home the topsails, and backing and filling the sails, in hope of starting or clearing the anchors; but it was all in vain, and he sat down on the rail, taking it very leisurely, and calling out to Captain Nye that he was coming to pay him a visit. We drifted fairly into the Loriotte, her

ter, carrying away a part of our starboard quarter railing, and breaking off her larboard bumkin, and one or two

ΤΟ

tain Bradshaw, down the companion-way, Captain Thompson has come aboard, sir!' 'Has he brought his brig with him?' asked the rough old fellow, in a

aft. This mortified our captain not a

stanchions above the deck. We saw our handsome sailor, Jackson, on the forecastle, with the Sandwich-Islanders, working away to get us clear. After paying out chain, we swung clear, but 5 tone which made itself heard fore and our anchors were, no doubt, afoul of hers. We manned the windlass, and hove little, and it became a standing joke away, but no purpose. Sometimes we got a little upon the cable, but a good surge would take it all back again. We 10 now began to drift down toward the Ayacucho; when her boat put off, and brought her commander, Captain Wilson, on board. He was a short, active, wellbuilt man, about fifty years of age; and 15 being some twenty years older than our captain, and a thorough seaman, he did not hesitate to give his advice, and, from giving advice, he gradually came to taking the command; ordering us when to 20 heave and when to pawl, and backing and filling the topsails, setting and taking in jib and trysail, whenever he thought best. Our captain gave a few orders, but as Wilson generally countermanded them, 25 saying, in an easy, fatherly kind of way,

among us, and, indeed, over the coast, for the rest of the voyage. The captain went down into the cabin, and we walked forward and put our heads down the forecastle, where we found the men at supper. Come down, shipmates! come down!' said they, as soon as they saw us; and we went down, and found a large, high forecastle, well lighted, and a crew of twelve or fourteen men eating out of their kids and pans, and drinking their tea, and talking and laughing, all as independent and easy as so many woodsawyer's clerks.' This looked like comfort and enjoyment, compared with the dark little forecastle, and scanty, discontented crew of the brig. It was Saturday night; they had got through their work for the week, and, being snugly moored, had nothing to do until Monday again. After two years' hard service, they had seen the worst, and all, of California; had got their cargo nearly stowed, and expected to sail, in a week or two, for Boston.

We spent an hour or more with them, talking over California matters, until the word was passed,- Pilgrims, away!' and we went back to our brig. The Lagodas were a hardy, intelligent set, a little roughened, and their clothes patched and old, from California wear; all able seamen, and between the ages of twenty and thirty-five or forty. They inquired about our vessel, the usage on board, &c., and were not a little surprised at the story of the flogging. They said there were

O no! Captain Thompson, you don't want the jib on her,' or 'It is n't time yet to heave!' he soon gave it up. We had no objections to this state of things, 30 for Wilson was a kind man, and had an encouraging and pleasant way of speaking to us, which made everything go easily. After two or three hours of constant labor at the windlass, heaving and yo-ho- 35 ing with all our might, we brought up an anchor, with the Loriotte's small bower fast to it. Having cleared this, and let it go, and cleared our hawse, we got our other anchor, which had dragged half over 40 the harbor. Now,' said Wilson, 'I'll find you a good berth'; and, setting both the topsails, he carried us down, and brought us to anchor, in handsome style, directly abreast of the hide-house which 45 often difficulties in vessels on the coast, we were to use. Having done this, he took his leave, while we furled the sails, and got our breakfast, which was welcome to us, for we had worked hard, and eaten nothing since yesterday afternoon, 50 and it was nearly twelve o'clock. After breakfast, and until night, we were employed in getting out the boats and mooring ship.

After supper, two of us took the cap- 55 tain on board the Lagoda. As he came alongside, he gave his name, and the mate, in the gangway, called out to Cap

and sometimes knock-downs and fightings, but they had never heard before of a regular seizing-up and flogging. Spread eagles' were a new kind of bird in California.

Sunday, they said, was always given in San Diego, both at the hide-houses and on board the vessels, a large number usually going up to the town, on liberty. We learned a good deal from them about the curing and stowing of hides, &c., and they were desirous to have the latest news (seven months old) from Boston. One

5

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)

Thoreau was country born,- he alone of the Concord school' of writers was native to the place he spent a sturdy, barefooted boyhood, went to the village school, an excellent one, and at sixteen was fitted for Harvard College from which he was graduated in 1837 very well equipped with a knowledge of languages and a quite remarkable ability to make use of his pen. For several years he taught school with his brother John, then from 1841 to 1843- the Dial period he lived as a member of the Emerson household in the capacity of gardener and general helper even to the helping to edit the famous Transcendental mouthpiece the Dial. He studied for no profession,- he was too independent to tie himself to anything that savored of slavery. He did what he pleased: surveyed land for the farmers, made gardens, or turned to lead-pencil making, his father's business, which, despite certain stories to the contrary, he followed intermittently during the rest of his life. His well-known experiment at Walden Pond began in 1845. He was a restless soul. He made excursions to Cape Cod, to Canada, and to Minnesota, and numberless shorter trips to the Maine Woods and other near regions, all the experiences and observations of which he carefully recorded in his journals.

He was eccentric, undoubtdreamers. but he was not a Even while he was making

Much misinformation has been circulated concerning Thoreau. edly, an extreme among a rather extreme group of reformers and hermit. He went to Walden Pond to prove a sociological theory. his home in the woods he went almost daily to the village to meet with his friends. He took delight in the town lyceum, read papers before it, and delivered lectures even in Boston, and was intensely interested in all the stirring events of his time. After the capture of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, he was so stirred that he summoned a meeting of his townsmen and addressed them in hot indignation and later delivered the same address to Theodore Parker's congregation in Boston.

His first literary ambition seems to have turned in the direction of poetry. To the Dial he contributed a small sheaf of verse, much of which he reproduced in his first volume, A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, 1849, that curious mélange of material.- miscellany from his note-book, essays, poems, papers delivered before the Concord lyceum, translations, Oriental philosophy, muskrats, sunsets, and botany. His residence at the home of Emerson and his help as a kind of assistant editor of the Dial had brought him into the heart of the Transcendentalist group and had emphasized his individualism. To understand the evolution of his mind one must study his rather large mass of contributions to the famous periodical: poems, translations,- he furnished a metrical version of Prometheus Bound entire, and versions of Anacreon and Pindar - studies of Aulus Persius Flaccus, the Laws of Menu, the Chinese Four Books, The Sayings of Confucius, the Preaching of Buddha, and the Ethnical Scriptures: Hermes Trismegistus, a paper on Poetry, one on natural history, and an essay entitled A Winter Walk, the beginning of his nature writings.

His Walden appeared in 1854, but nothing else until after his death. His fame has been a posthumous one. Lowell in his well-known essay was unjust to Thoreau, and it was largely this essay that caused the decline in interest in the poet-naturalist during the two decades after his death. Since the eighties, however, the nature school has arisen and has discovered in Thoreau its founder and leading exponent. The reformer is no longer thought of, and it was chiefly as a reformer that Lowell had considered him. His complete journal has been published, and more and more he is becoming recognized as one of the real original and stimulating writers of his generation.