Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
The wind had hauled ahead during the squall, and we were standing
directly in for the point. So, as soon as we had got all snug, we wore
round and stood off again, and had the pleasant prospect of beating up
to Monterey, a distance of an hundred miles, against a violent head
wind. Before night it began to rain; and we had five days of rainy,
stormy weather, under close sail all the time, and were blown several
hundred miles off the coast. In the midst of this, we discovered that
our fore topmast was sprung, (which no doubt happened in the squall,)
and were obliged to send down the fore top-gallant-mast and carry as
little sail as possible forward. Our four passengers were dreadfully
sick, so that we saw little or nothing of them during the five days.
On the sixth day it cleared off, and the sun came out bright, but the
wind and sea were still very high. It was quite like being at sea
again: no land for hundreds of miles, and the captain taking the sun
every day at noon. Our passengers now made their appearance, and I had
for the first time the opportunity of seeing what a miserable and
forlorn creature a sea-sick passenger is. Since I had got over my own
sickness, the third day from Boston, I had seen nothing but hale,
hearty men, with their sea legs on, and able to go anywhere, (for we
had no passengers;) and I will own there was a pleasant feeling of
superiority in being able to walk the deck, and eat, and go about, and
comparing one's self with two poor, miserable, pale creatures,
staggering and shuffling about decks, or holding on and looking up with
giddy heads, to see us climbing to the mast-heads, or sitting quietly
at work on the ends of the lofty yards. A well man at sea has little
sympathy with one who is seasick; he is too apt to be conscious of a
comparison favorable to his own manhood. After a few days we made the
land at Point Pinos, (pines,) which is the headland at the entrance of
the bay of Monterey. As we drew in, and ran down the shore, we could
distinguish well the face of the country, and found it better wooded
than that to the southward of Point Conception. In fact, as I
afterwards discovered, Point Conception may be made the dividing line
between two different faces of the country. As you go to the northward
of the point, the country becomes more wooded, has a richer appearance,
and is better supplied with water. This is the case with Monterey, and
still more so with San Francisco; while to the southward of the point,
as at Santa Barbara, San Pedro, and particularly San Diego, there is
very little wood, and the country has a naked, level appearance, though
it is still very fertile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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