We were always glad to see San Diego; it being the depot, and a
snug little place, and seeming quite like home, especially to me,
who had spent a summer there. There was no vessel in port, the
Rosa having sailed for Valparaiso and Cadiz, and the Catalina for
Callao, nearly a month before. We discharged our hides, and in
four days were ready to sail again for the windward; and, to our
great joy-- for the last time! Over thirty thousand hides had been
already collected, cured, and stowed away in the house, which,
together with what we should collect, and the Pilgrim would bring
down from San Francisco, would make out our cargo. The thought
that we were actually going up for the last time, and that the
next time we went round San Diego point it would be ``homeward
bound,'' brought things so near a close that we felt as though we
were just there, though it must still be the greater part of a
year before we could see Boston.
I spent one evening, as had been my custom, at the oven with the
Sandwich-Islanders; but it was far from being the usual noisy,
laughing time. It has been said that the greatest curse to each of
the South Sea Islands was the first man who discovered it; and
every one who knows anything of the history of our commerce in
those parts knows how much truth there is in this; and that the
white men, with their vices, have brought in diseases before
unknown to the islanders, which are now sweeping off the native
population of the Sandwich Islands at the rate of one fortieth of
the entire population annually.
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