Old "Mr. Bingham" and "King Mannini"
went down to the boat with me, shook me heartily by the hand, wished
us a good voyage, and went back to the oven, chanting one of their
deep monotonous songs, the burden of which I gathered to be about us
and our voyage.
Sunday, May 8th. This promised to be our last day in California. Our
forty thousand hides, thirty thousand horns, besides several barrels
of otter and beaver skins, were all stowed below, and the hatches
calked down. All our spare spars were taken on board and lashed; our
water-casks secured; and our live stock, consisting of four
bullocks, a dozen sheep, a dozen or more pigs, and three or four dozen
of poultry, were all stowed away in their different quarters: the
bullocks in the long-boat, the sheep in a pen on the fore-hatch, and
the pigs in a sty under the bows of the long-boat, and the poultry
in their proper coop; and the jolly-boat was full of hay for the sheep
and bullocks. Our unusually large cargo, together with the stores
for a five months' voyage, brought the ship channels down into the
water. In addition to this, she had been steeved so thoroughly, and
was so bound by the compression of her cargo, forced into her by so
powerful machinery, that she was like a man in a straight-jacket,
and would be but a dull sailer, until she had worked herself loose.
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