One or two other carts were coming slowly on
from the mission, and the captain told us to begin and throw the hides
down. This, then, was the way they were to be got down: thrown down,
one at a time, a distance of four hundred feet! This was doing the
business on a great scale. Standing on the edge of the hill and
looking down the perpendicular height, the sailors,
--That walk upon the beach,
Appeared like mice; and our tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock; her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight."
Down this height we pitched the hides, throwing them as far out into
the air as we could; and as they were all large, stiff, and doubled,
like the cover of a book, the wind took them, and they swayed and
eddied about, plunging and rising in the air, like a kite when it
has broken its string. As it was now low tide, there was no danger
of their falling into the water, and as fast as they came to ground,
the men below picked them up, and taking them on their heads, walked
off with them to the boat. It was really a picturesque sight: the
great height; the scaling of the hides; and the continual walking to
and fro of the men, who looked like mites, on the beach! This was
the romance of hide-droghing!
Some of the hides lodged in cavities which were under the bank and
out of our sight, being directly under us; but by sending others
down in the same direction, we succeeded in dislodging them.
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