CHAPTER XXVIII
AN OLD FRIEND--A VICTIM--CALIFORNIA RANGERS--NEWS FROM HOME--LAST
LOOKS
Monday, Feb. 1st. After having been in port twenty-one days, we
sailed for San Pedro, where we arrived on the following day, having
gone "all fluking," with the weather clew of the mainsail hauled up,
the yards braced in a little, and the lower studding-sails just
drawing; the wind hardly shifting a point during the passage. Here
we found the Ayacucho and the Pilgrim, which last we had not seen
since the 11th of September,- nearly five months; and I really felt
something like an affection for the old brig which had been my first
home, and in which I had spent nearly a year, and got the first
rough and tumble of a sea life. She, too, was associated, in my mind
with Boston, the wharf from which we sailed, anchorage in the
stream, leave-taking, and all such matters, which were now to me
like small links connecting me with another world, which I had once
been in, and which, please God, I might yet see again. I went on board
the first night, after supper; found the old cook in the galley,
playing upon the fife which I had given him, as a parting present; had
a hearty shake of the hand from him; and dove down into the
forecastle, where were my old shipmates, the same as ever, glad to see
me; for they had nearly given us up as lost, especially when they
did not find us in Santa Barbara.
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