Before we doubled
the point, we were going at a dashing rate, and leaving the shipping
far astern. We had a fine breeze to take us through the Canal, as they
call this bay of forty miles long by ten wide. The breeze died away at
night, and we were becalmed all day on Sunday, about half way
between Santa Barbara and Point Conception. Sunday night we had a
light, fair wind, which set us up again; and having a fine
sea-breeze on the first part of Monday, we had the prospect of
passing, without any trouble, Point Conception,- the Cape Horn of
California, where it begins to blow the first of January, and blows
all the year round. Toward the latter part of the afternoon,
however, the regular northwest wind, as usual, set in, which brought
in our studding-sails, and gave us the chance of beating round the
Point, which we were now just abreast of, and which stretched off into
the Pacific, high, rocky and barren, forming the central point of
the coast for hundreds of miles north and south. A cap-full of wind
will be a bag-full here, and before night our royals were furled,
and the ship was laboring hard under her top-gallant sails.
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