Directly before us rose the perpendicular height of four or five hundred feet.  How we were to get hides down, or goods up, upon the table-land on which the Mission was situated, was more than we could tell.  The agent had taken a long circuit, and yet had frequently to jump over breaks, and climb steep places, in the ascent.  No animal but a man or a monkey could get up it.  However, that was not our lookout; and, knowing that the agent would be gone an hour or more, we strolled about, picking up shells, and following the sea where it tumbled in, roaring and spouting, among the crevices of the great rocks.  What a sight, thought I, must this be in a southeaster!  The rocks were as large as those of Nahant or Newport, but, to my eye, more grand and broken.  Beside, there was a grandeur in everything around, which gave a solemnity to the scene, a silence and solitariness which affected every part!  Not a human being but ourselves for miles, and no sound heard but the pulsations of the great Pacific! and the great steep hill rising like a wall, and cutting us off from all the world, but the ``world of waters’’ !  I separated myself from the rest, and sat down on a rock, just where the sea ran in and formed a fine spouting horn.  Compared with the plain, dull sand-beach of the rest of the coast, this grandeur was as refreshing as a great rock in a weary land.  It was almost the first time that I had been positively alone—­ free from the sense that human beings were at my elbow, if not talking with me—­ since I had left home.  My better nature returned strong upon me.  Everything was in accordance with my state of feeling, and I experienced a glow of pleasure at finding that what of poetry and romance I ever had in me had not been entirely deadened by the laborious life, with its paltry, vulgar associations, which I had been leading.  Nearly an hour did I sit, almost lost in the luxury of this entire new scene of the play in which I had been so long acting, when I was aroused by the distant shouts of my companions, and saw that they were collecting together, as the agent had made his appearance, on his way back to our boat.

We pulled aboard, and found the long-boat hoisted out, and nearly laden with goods; and, after dinner, we all went on shore in the quarter-boat, with the long-boat in tow.  As we drew in, we descried an ox-cart and a couple of men standing directly on the brow of the hill; and having landed, the captain took his way round the hill, ordering me and one other to follow him.  We followed, picking our way out, and jumping and scrambling up, walking over briers and prickly pears, until we came to the top.  Here the country stretched out for miles, as far as the eye could reach, on a level, table surface, and the only habitation in sight was the small white mission of San Juan Capistrano, with a few Indian huts about it, standing in a small hollow, about a mile from where we were.  Reaching the brow of the hill, where the cart stood, we found several piles of hides, and Indians sitting round them.  One or two other carts were coming slowly on from the Mission, and the captain told us to begin and throw the hides down.  This, then, was the way they were to be got down,—­ thrown down, one at a time, a distance of four hundred feet!  This was doing the business on a great scale.  Standing on the edge of the hill, and looking down the perpendicular height, the sailors