On Monday morning, as an offset to our day’s sport, we were all set to work ``tarring down’’ the rigging.  Some got girt-lines up for riding down the stays and back-stays, and others tarred the shrouds, lifts, &c., laying out on the yards, and coming down the rigging.  We overhauled our bags, and took out our old tarry trousers and frocks, which we had used when we tarred down before, and were all at work in the rigging by sunrise.  After breakfast, we had the satisfaction of seeing the Italian ship’s boat go ashore, filled with men, gayly dressed, as on the day before, and singing their barcarollas.  The Easter holidays are kept up on shore for three days; and, being a Catholic vessel, her crew had the advantage of them.  For two successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits.  So much for being Protestants.  There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England, unless the Church cuts down her holidays; Yankees can’t afford the time.  American shipmasters get nearly three weeks’ more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries.  As Yankees don’t usually keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, Jack has no festival at all.

About noon, a man aloft called out ``Sail ho!’’ and, looking off, we saw the head sails of a vessel coming round the point.  As she drew round, she showed the broadside of a full-rigged brig, with the Yankee ensign at her peak.  We ran up our stars and stripes, and, knowing that there was no American brig on the coast but ours, expected to have news from home.  She rounded-to and let go her anchor; but the dark faces on her yards, when they furled the sails, and the Babel on deck, soon made known that she was from the Islands.  Immediately afterwards, a boat’s crew came aboard, bringing her skipper, and from them we learned that she was from Oahu, and was engaged in the same trade with the Ayacucho and Loriotte, between the coast, the Sandwich Islands, and the leeward coast of Peru and Chili.  Her captain and officers were Americans, and also a part of her crew; the rest were Islanders.  She was called the Catalina, and, like the vessels in that trade, except the Ayacucho, her papers and colors were from Uncle Sam.  They, of course, brought us no news, and we were doubly disappointed, for we had thought, at first, it might be the ship which we were expecting from Boston.

After lying here about a fortnight, and collecting all the hides the place afforded, we set sail again for San Pedro.  There we found the brig which we had assisted in getting off lying at anchor, with a mixed crew of Americans, English, Sandwich-Islanders, Spaniards, and Spanish Indians; and though much smaller than we, yet she had three times the number of men; and she needed them, for her officers were Californians.