stanchions above the deck. We saw our handsome sailor, Jackson, on the forecastle, with the Sandwich-Islanders, working away to get us clear. After

tain Bradshaw, down the companion-way, 'Captain Thompson has come aboard, sir!' 'Has he brought his brig with him?' asked the rough old fellow, in a

paying out chain, we swung clear, but 5 tone which made itself heard fore and

our anchors were, no doubt, afoul of
hers. We manned the windlass, and hove
away, but no purpose. Sometimes we
got a little upon the cable, but a good
surge would take it all back again. We 10
now began to drift down toward the
Ayacucho; when her boat put off, and
brought her commander, Captain Wilson,
on board. He was a short, active, well-
built man, about fifty years of age; and 15
being some twenty years older than our
captain, and a thorough seaman, he did
not hesitate to give his advice, and, from
giving advice, he gradually came to tak-
ing the command; ordering us when to 20
heave and when to pawl, and backing and
filling the topsails, setting and taking in
jib and trysail, whenever he thought best.
Our captain gave a few orders, but as
Wilson generally countermanded them, 25
saying, in an easy, fatherly kind of way,

O no! Captain Thompson, you don't
want the jib on her,' or 'It is n't time
yet to heave!' he soon gave it up. We
had no objections to this state of things, 30
for Wilson was a kind man, and had an
encouraging and pleasant way of speak-
ing to us, which made everything go easily.
After two or three hours of constant
labor at the windlass, heaving and yo-ho- 35
ing with all our might, we brought up an
anchor, with the Loriotte's small bower
fast to it. Having cleared this, and let
it go, and cleared our hawse, we got our
other anchor, which had dragged half over 40
the harbor. Now,' said Wilson, 'I'll
find you a good berth'; and, setting both
the topsails, he carried us down, and
brought us to anchor, in handsome style,
directly abreast of the hide-house which 45
we were to use. Having done this, he
took his leave, while we furled the sails,
and got our breakfast, which was wel-
come to us, for we had worked hard, and
eaten nothing since yesterday afternoon, 50
and it was nearly twelve o'clock. After
breakfast, and until night, we were em-
ployed in getting out the boats and moor-
ing ship.

After supper, two of us took the cap- 55 tain on board the Lagoda. As he came alongside, he gave his name, and the mate, in the gangway, called out to Cap

aft. This mortified our captain not a little, and it became a standing joke among us, and, indeed, over the coast, for the rest of the voyage. The captain went down into the cabin, and we walked forward and put our heads down the forecastle, where we found the men at supper. Come down, shipmates! come down!' said they, as soon as they saw us; and we went down, and found a large, high forecastle, well lighted, and a crew of twelve or fourteen men eating out of their kids and pans, and drinking their tea, and talking and laughing, all as independent and easy as so many woodsawyer's clerks.' This looked like com fort and enjoyment, compared with the dark little forecastle, and scanty, discontented crew of the brig. It was Saturday night; they had got through their work for the week, and, being snugly moored, had nothing to do until Monday again. After two years' hard service, they had seen the worst, and all, of California; had got their cargo nearly stowed, and expected to sail, in a week or two, for Boston.

We spent an hour or more with them, talking over California matters, until the word was passed,- Pilgrims, away!' and we went back to our brig. The Lagodas were a hardy, intelligent set, a little roughened, and their clothes patched and old, from California wear; all able seamen, and between the ages of twenty and thirty-five or forty. They inquired about our vessel, the usage on board, &c., and were not a little surprised at the story of the flogging. They said there were often difficulties in vessels on the coast, and sometimes knock-downs and fightings, but they had never heard before of a regular seizing-up and flogging. Spread eagles' were a new kind of bird in California.

Sunday, they said, was always given in San Diego, both at the hide-houses and on board the vessels, a large number usually going up to the town, on liberty. We learned a good deal from them about the curing and stowing of hides, &c., and they were desirous to have the latest news (seven months old) from Boston. One

5

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)

Thoreau was country born,- he alone of the Concord school' of writers was native to the place he spent a sturdy, barefooted boyhood, went to the village school, an excellent one, and at sixteen was fitted for Harvard College from which he was graduated in 1837 very well equipped with a knowledge of languages and a quite remarkable ability to make use of his pen. For several years he taught school with his brother John, then from 1841 to 1843- the Dial period he lived as a member of the Emerson household in the capacity of gardener and general helper even to the helping to edit the famous Transcendental mouthpiece the Dial. He studied for no profession,- he was too independent to tie himself to anything that savored of slavery. He did what he pleased: surveyed land for the farmers, made gardens, or turned to lead-pencil making, his father's business, which, despite certain stories to the contrary, he followed intermittently during the rest of his life. His well-known experiment at Walden Pond began in 1845. He was a restless soul. He made excursions to Cape Cod, to Canada, and to Minnesota, and numberless shorter trips to the Maine Woods and other near regions, all the experiences and observations of which he carefully recorded in his journals.

Much misinformation has been circulated concerning Thoreau. He was eccentric, undoubtedly, an extreme among a rather extreme group of reformers and dreamers, but he was not a hermit. He went to Walden Pond to prove a sociological theory. Even while he was making his home in the woods he went almost daily to the village to meet with his friends. He took delight in the town lyceum, read papers before it, and delivered lectures even in Boston, and was intensely interested in all the stirring events of his time. After the capture of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, he was so stirred that he summoned a meeting of his townsmen and addressed them in hot indignation and later delivered the same address to Theodore Parker's congregation in Boston.

His first literary ambition seems to have turned in the direction of poetry. To the Dial he contributed a small sheaf of verse, much of which he reproduced in his first volume, A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, 1849, that curious mélange of material,- miscellany from his note-book, essays, poems, papers delivered before the Concord lyceum, translations, Oriental philosophy, muskrats, sunsets, and botany. His residence at the home of Emerson and his help as a kind of assistant editor of the Dial had brought him into the heart of the Transcendentalist group and had emphasized his individualism. To understand the evolution of his mind one must study his rather large mass of contributions to the famous periodical: poems, translations,— he furnished a metrical version of Prometheus Bound entire, and versions of Anacreon and Pindar - studies of Aulus Persius Flaccus, the Laws of Menu, the Chinese Four Books, The Sayings of Confucius, the Preaching of Buddha, and the Ethnical Scriptures: Hermes Trismegistus, a paper on Poetry, one on natural history, and an essay entitled A Winter Walk, the beginning of his nature writings.

His Walden appeared in 1854, but nothing else until after his death. His fame has been a posthumous one. Lowell in his well-known essay was unjust to Thoreau, and it was largely this essay that caused the decline in interest in the poet-naturalist during the two decades after his death. Since the eighties, however, the nature school has arisen and has discovered in Thoreau its founder and leading exponent. The reformer is no longer thought of, and it was chiefly as a reformer that Lowell had considered him. His complete journal has been published, and more and more he is becoming recognized as one of the real original and stimulating writers of his generation.

Say not that Cæsar was victorious,
With toil and strife who stormed the House
of Fame:

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