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 interval 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 Jose 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, determined 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, intentionally, 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 drenching 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 bloody quill-driver.’’

Having collected nearly all the hides that were to be procured, 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 axe 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