On Tuesday, November 25, we reached the Island of Juan Fernandez. We were then probably seventy miles from it; and so high did it appear that I took it for a cloud, until it gradually turned to a greener and deader colour. By the afternoon the island lay fairly before us, and we directed our course to the only harbour. Never shall I forget the sensation which I experienced on finding myself once more surrounded by land as I stood my watch at about three the following morning, feeling the breeze coming off shore and hearing the frogs and crickets. To my joy I was among the number ordered ashore to fill the water-casks. By the morning of the 27th we were again upon the wide Pacific, and we saw neither land nor sail again until, on January 13, 1835, we reached Point Conception, on the coast of California. We had sailed well to the westward, to have the full advantage of the north-east trades, and so had now to sail southward to reach the port of Santa Barbara, where we arrived on the 14th, after a voyage of 150 days from Boston. At Santa Barbara we came into touch with other vessels engaged in loading hides and tallow, and as this was the work in which we were soon to be engaged, we looked on with some curiosity, especially at the labours of the crew of the Ayacucho, who were dusky Sandwich Islanders. And besides practice in landing on this difficult coast, we experienced the difficulties involved in having suddenly to slip our cables and then, when the weather allowed of it, coming to at our former moorings. From this time until May 8, 1836, I was engaged in trading and loading, drying and storing hides, between Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Pedro, San Diego, San Juan, and San Francisco. The ship California, belonging to the same firm, had been nearly two years on the coast before she collected her full cargo of 40,000 hides. Another vessel, the Lagoda, carrying 31,000 or 32,000, had been nearly two years getting her cargo; and when it appeared that we were to collect some 40,000 hides besides our own, which would be 12,000 or 15,000, the men became discontented. It was bad for others, but worse for me, who did not mean to be a sailor for life. Three or four years would make me a sailor in every respect, mind and habits as well as body, and would put all my companions so far ahead of me that college and a profession would be in vain to think of. We were at the ends of the earth, in a country where there is neither law nor gospel, and where sailors are at their captain's mercy. We lost all interest in the voyage, cared nothing about the cargo, while we were only collecting for others, began to patch our clothes, and felt as though we were fixed beyond hope of change. _III.--A Tyrannical Captain_