Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
a dozen Kanakas, formed the addition to our company.
In about six weeks from the time when the Pilgrim sailed, we had got
all the hides which she left us cured and stowed away; and having
cleared up the ground, and emptied the vats, and set everything in
order, had nothing more to do until she should come down again, but to
supply ourselves with wood. Instead of going twice a week for this
purpose, we determined to give one whole week to getting wood, and then
we should have enough to last us half through the summer. Accordingly,
we started off every morning, after an early breakfast, with our
hatchets in hand, and cut wood until the sun was over the point,--which
was our only mark of time, as there was not a watch on the beach--and
then came back to dinner, and after dinner, started off again with our
hand-cart and ropes, and carted and "backed" it down, until sunset.
This, we kept up for a week, until we had collected several
cords,--enough to last us for six or eight weeks--when we "knocked off"
altogether, much to my joy; for, though I liked straying in the woods,
and cutting, very well, yet the backing the wood for so great a
distance, over an uneven country, was, without exception, the hardest
work I had ever done. I usually had to kneel down and contrive to heave
the load, which was well strapped together, upon my back, and then rise
up and start off with it up the hills and down the vales, sometimes
through thickets,--the rough points sticking into the skin, and tearing
the clothes, so that, at the end of the week, I had hardly a whole
shirt to my back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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