"Sail
ho!" cried a man who was rigging out a top-gallant studdingsail
boom.- "Where away?"- "Weather beam, sir!" and in a few minutes a
full-rigged brig was seen standing out from under Point Conception.
The studding-sail halyards were let go, and the yards boom-ended,
the after yards braced aback, and we waited her coming down. She
rounded to, backed her main topsail, and showed her decks full of men,
four guns on a side, hammock nettings, and everything man-of-war
fashion, except that there was no boatswain's whistle, and no uniforms
on the quarter-deck. A short, square-built man, in a rough grey
jacket, with a speaking-trumpet in hand, stood in the weather
hammock nettings. "Ship ahoy!"- "Hallo!"- "What ship is that,
pray?"- "Alert."- "Where are you from, pray?" etc., etc. She proved to
be the brig Convoy, from the Sandwich Islands, engaged in otter
hunting, among the islands which lie along the coast. Her armament was
from her being an illegal trader. The otter are very numerous among
these islands, and being of great value, the government require a
heavy sum for a license to hunt them, and lay a high duty upon every
one shot or carried out of the country.
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