The gig was lowered away from the quarter, and a boat's crew of fine lads, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, pulled the captain ashore. The gig was a light whale-boat, handsomely painted, and fitted up with cushions and tiller-ropes in the stern sheets. We immediately attacked the boat's crew, and got very thick with them in a few minutes. We had much to ask about Boston, their passage out, &c., and they were very curious to know about the kind of life we were leading upon the beach. One of them offered to exchange with me, which was just what I wanted, and we had only to get the permission of the captain. After dinner the crew began discharging their hides, and, as we had nothing to do at the hide-houses, we were ordered aboard to help them. I had now my first opportunity of seeing the ship which I hoped was to be my home for the next year. She looked as well on board as she did from without. Her decks were wide and roomy (there being no poop, or house on deck, which disfigures the after part of most of our vessels), flush fore and aft, and as white as flax, which the crew told us was from constant use of holystones. There was no foolish gilding and gingerbread work, to take the eye of landsmen and passengers, but everything was ``ship-shape.'' There was no rust, no dirt, no rigging hanging slack, no fag-ends of ropes and ``Irish pendants'' aloft, and the yards were squared ``to a t'' by lifts and braces. The mate was a hearty fellow, with a roaring voice, and always wide awake. He was ``a man, every inch of him,'' as the sailors said; and though ``a bit of a horse,'' and ``a hard customer,'' yet he was generally liked by the crew. There was also a second and third mate, a carpenter, sailmaker, steward, and cook, and twelve hands before the mast. She had on board seven thousand hides, which she had collected at the windward, and also horns and tallow. All these we began discharging from both gangways at once into the two boats, the second mate having charge of the launch, and the third mate of the pinnace. For several days we were employed in this way, until all the hides were taken out, when the crew began taking in ballast, and we returned to our old work, hide-curing. Saturday, August 29th. Arrived, brig Catalina, from the windward.