"How do things go aboard?" said I.
"Bad enough," said he; "hard work and not a kind word spoken."
"What," said I, "have you been at work all day?"
"Yes! no more Sunday for us. Everything has been moved in the
hold, from stem to stern, and from the waterways to the keelson."
I went up to the house to supper. We had frijoles, (the perpetual
food of the Californians, but which, when well cooked, are the best
bean in the world,) coffee made of burnt wheat, and hard bread.
After our meal, the three men sat down by the light of a tallow
candle, with a pack of greasy Spanish cards, to the favorite game of
"treinta uno," a sort of Spanish "everlasting." I left them and went
out to take up my bivouack among the hides. It was now dark; the
vessel was hidden from sight, and except the three men in the house,
there was not a living soul within a league. The coati (a wild
animal of a nature and appearance between that of the fox and the
wolf) set up their sharp, quick bark, and two owls, at the end of
two distant points running out into the bay, on different sides of the
hills where I lay, kept up their alternate, dismal notes.
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