Here we were again, in this
romantic spot; a perpendicular hill, twice the height of the ship's
mast-head, with a single circuitous path to the top, and long sand
beach at its base, with the swell of the whole Pacific breaking high
upon it, and our hides ranged in piles on the overhanging summit.
The captain sent me, who was the only one of the crew that had ever
been there before, to the top, to count the hides and pitch them down.
There I stood again, as six months before, throwing off the hides, and
watching them, pitching and scaling, to the bottom, while the men,
dwarfed by the distance, were walking to and fro on the beach,
carrying the hides, as they picked them up, to the distant boats, upon
the tops of their heads. Two or three boat-loads were sent off, until,
at last, all were thrown down, and the boats nearly loaded again; when
we were delayed by a dozen or twenty hides which had lodged in the
recesses of the hill, and which we could not reach by any missiles, as
the general line of the side was exactly perpendicular, and these
places were caved in, and could not be seen or reached from the top.
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