Twice, after this, I visited him, having only time to run up,
while waiting in the boat. He promised to take his medicines regularly
until we returned, and insisted upon it that he was doing better.
We got under weigh on the 10th, bound up to San Pedro, and had three
days of calm and head winds, making but little progress. On the
fourth, we took a stiff south-easter, which obliged us to reef our
topsails. While on the yard, we saw a sail on the weather bow, and
in about half an hour, passed the Ayacucho, under doublereefed
topsails, beating down to San Diego. Arrived at San Pedro on the
fourth day, and came-to in the old place, a league from shore, with no
other vessel in port, and the prospect of three weeks, or more, of
dull life, rolling goods up a slippery hill, carrying hides on our
heads over sharp stones, and, perhaps, slipping for a south-easter.
There was but one man in the only house here, and him I shall always
remember as a good specimen of a California ranger. He had been a
tailor in Philadelphia, and getting intemperate and in debt, he joined
a trapping party and went to the Columbia river, and thence down to
Monterey, where he spent everything, left his party, and came to the
Pueblo de los Angelos, to work at his trade.
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