Tired of watching, we at last started off to see what else there was of interest at the station. When we returned, near evening, the boats were far down on the edge of the horizon, and had apparently fastened to a whale, while another large
school was playing undisturbed within half a mile of the shore. The trypots were placed on the other side of the Point, and there we found a party of men busy extracting the oil from heaps of blubber ready cut up from a huge humpback whale; flukes and wreck lay on the beach below. They were dripping and fairly saturated with the oil, and everything around was in the same condition. The stinking fluid had run down the face of the bluff to the water's edge, and the whole place was redolent of the perfume. A row of casks filled with oil testified to the success of the business. The tryers told us that they had cut up twelve whales already that season, and had killed and lost ten more. The fall season usually begins in October, but that year the whales had come down from the Arctic regions a month or six weeks earlier, and business had opened good. Last year they caught only two humpbacks, the rest being "California grays." This year, thus far, the whales killed had all been humpbacks. A good big fellow will yield one hundred barrels of oil, but the average is perhaps thirty-five. Whale-fishing is carried on in this manner at San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and other points all along the coast down to Cape St. Lucas. On the hill I noticed a pile of the blubber scraps from which the oil had been boiled, which are used for lighting fires to guide the boats home on dark nights. Did it ever by any possibility occur to these guileless Gees, that a fire thus lighted at this high point on a dark night
might
possibly be mistaken for a lighthouse light, and thus a noble vessel, freighted
TRYING OUT.
with precious lives, and freight liable to get badly scattered when cast ashore by the waves, be lured to destruction? There have been many wrecks along this rocky coast, and underwriters seldom secure much of the cargo.
There are no real harbors between San Francisco and San Diego, about four hundred miles south, and very few places where a vessel can in the fairest weather run alongside a wharf to load or unload. At Pigeon Point there is a semicircular bay, partially sheltered from the northern winds, but the heavy swells rolling in from the southwest prevent any wharves being erected. Out about two hundred yards from the shore is a high monument-like rock, rising to a level with the steep rock bluff which half incloses the bay. From the bluff to the top of this rock stretches a heavy wire cable, kept taut by a capstan. A vessel rounding the reef runs into the sheltered cove under this hawser, and then casts anchor. Slings running down on the hawser are rigged, and her cargo lifted from her deck load by load, run up into the air fifty to one hundred feet, then hauled in shore, and landed upon the top of the bluff. Lumber, hay in bales like cotton, fruit, potatoes, vegetables, dairy products, etc., etc., are in like manner run out and lowered at the right moment upon the vessel's decks. If a southwester comes on she slips her anchor and runs out to sea till it is over. This system is in extensive use along the coast, though in some places lighters and tugs are employed to load and unload.
This part of the coast has a terrible name, and may well be dreaded by sailors. Six miles south of Pigeon Point is Point Año Nuevo (New Year). The shore between bends inward, and all along black reefs of rocks rear their ugly fangs, like wild beasts watching for their prey. A current sweeps in from Point Año Nuevo toward Pigeon Point, and many a vessel has been drawn in in the fog, to be dashed on the rocks. Off Point Año Nuevo is a desert island of three or four acres of sand and rocks, a favorite resort of sea-lions and sea-birds. On this island the United States government proposed to erect a lighthouse, but the owners of the great Spanish ranch of seventeen thousand acres, to whom it belongs, asked forty thousand dollars for a deed of it,—they bought the whole grant originally for about twenty thousand dollars, and have realized twice that sum from partial sales; and so it was decided to place it on Pigeon Point, where a site equally as good was secured for five thousand dollars. Ultimately the demand for a site at Point Año Nuevo, at something like a reasonable rate, was conceded, and there will soon be a lighthouse on both points.
The most noted wrecks hereabouts have been as follows: 1. The clipper-ship Carrier Pigeon, of eleven hundred tons, from Boston, wrecked at Pigeon Point in the winter of 1853-4, the vessel and cargo being a total loss, although the crew escaped. 2. The ship Sir John Franklin, from Baltimore, with the cargo of the Pennell, condemned at Rio de Janeiro; lost at Point Año Nuevo, six years ago; captain, first mate, and eleven of the crew drowned. 3. The British iron bark Coya, from Newcastle, with coal and passengers; wrecked between the two points, four years ago. No danger was suspected in this case, until in the early part of the night the vessel, supposed to be forty miles off shore, was discovered to be among the breakers. Before she could be put about she struck the reef, rolled over into the deep water beyond, and went down in an instant, carrying with her twenty-seven people, including three women. Two men and a boy, half naked, benumbed and exhausted, were cast upon the rocks, and reached a ranch, the only survivors of the thirty souls on board. 4. The ship Hellespont (British), from Newcastle, eleven hundred tons of coal, lost near Pigeon Point one night in the winter of 1869-70. Seven men perished, but a portion of the crew, naked, bleeding, bruised, and more dead than alive, succeeded in reaching the fishermen's station.
On the sandy bluff at Point Año Nuevo is an inclosure within which lie buried, side by side, forty of the victims of these terrible disasters. Others were removed by their friends, and one, the mate of the Hellespont, sleeps, undisturbed by the merry prattle of the children or the wild screams of the sea-gulls, beside one of the whalers' houses at Pigeon Point.
"You see that grave right behind that house?" said my companion. "That is where we buried the mate of the Hellespont. She went ashore in the night within a mile of the Point, and, owing to the roar of the breakers, the whalemen knew nothing about it. One of the sailors, bleeding from many wounds, more dead than alive, and wholly naked, every rag having been torn from him in his buffeting with the waves, managed to crawl up the bluff, and, groping in the darkness, stumbled upon the trail leading to the Point. Just as the day was breaking, he had crept within sight of the cottages. One of the whalemen coming out met the poor fellow at the door, and raising the cry, 'A ghost! a ghost!' ran back with such speed as his trembling limbs would give him. The supposed ghost, seeing a chance for life, and being too cold to speak, staggered after him. In his terror the Portuguese stumbled and fell headlong upon the floor, and the shipwrecked mariner stumbled also and fell upon him. The other Gees, hearing the outcry, ran to the spot, and fell over the prostrate couple, and the horrible and grotesque were strangely mixed. At last the ghost related his story, and the frightened fishermen started down in search of the other survivors, two or three of whom were met crawling along the road. The bodies of others were lying on the beach, or tossed to and fro by the breakers, while the fragments of the wreck strewed the shore for miles. There is a telegraph station on the Point, communicating with the Merchants' Exchange in San Francisco and with the station at Pescadero, and the news of the disaster was soon known along the coast. We placed the body of the mate into a coffin, and asked the Portuguese to help us to bring it to the Point for burial, but the superstitious fellows would not touch the corpse for love or money. I coaxed, and pleaded, and appealed to their humanity, but all in vain. Then I swore that I would get even on them. We went up there and commenced digging a grave. When they saw what we were doing, they began to comprehend the situation, and so far conquered their prejudices as to offer to help us carry the corpse up the hill. 'Not much, darlings of my heart; I have changed my mind!' I said; and I had. I meant to give them a lesson which would last them a lifetime, or make them move their quarters. So three of us lugged it to this spot, and buried it beside the cottage, and his ghost has annoyed them every stormy night since, and will probably worry them as long as they stay here."
Thus chatting,