The only other
animals were horses. More than a dozen of these were owned by men
on the beach, and were allowed to run loose among the hills, with
a long lasso attached to them, to pick up feed wherever they could
find it. We were sure of seeing them once a day, for there was no
water among the hills, and they were obliged to come down to the
well which had been dug upon the beach. These horses were bought
at from two to six and eight dollars apiece, and were held very
much as common property. We generally kept one fast to one of the
houses, so that we could mount him and catch any of the others.
Some of them were really fine animals, and gave us many good runs
up to the presidio and over the country.
[1] Matches had not come into use then. I think there were none on
board any vessel on the coast. We used the tinder box in our
forecastle.
CHAPTER XX
After we had been a few weeks on shore, and had begun to feel
broken into the regularity of our life, its monotony was
interrupted by the arrival of two vessels from the windward. We
were sitting at dinner in our little room, when we heard the cry
of ``Sail ho!'' This, we had learned, did not always signify a
vessel, but was raised whenever a woman was seen coming down from
the town, or an ox-cart, or anything unusual, hove in sight upon
the road; so we took no notice of it.
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